Ask "is Apple woke?" and the answer isn't complicated. On the BuyWokeFree Woke Scale, Apple earns a flawless 100 out of 100 — the maximum possible score, matched by only a handful of the 2,400+ brands in our database. But what makes Apple's number remarkable isn't just how high it sits. It's that Apple earned it while much of corporate America was sprinting the other direction.
While Everyone Else Retreated, Apple Dug In
2025 was the year the DEI dam broke. Meta gutted its diversity roles, Target ended its "Belonging" initiatives, McDonald's retired its diversity goals, and Amazon quietly scrubbed inclusion language from its filings — many of them scrambling to align with the Trump administration's executive orders targeting private-sector DEI. Apple did the opposite.
At its February 25, 2025 annual meeting, the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research put a proposal in front of Apple shareholders asking the company to "cease DEI efforts." Apple's own management urged investors to vote it down, calling it an inappropriate attempt to micromanage the company's ordinary business operations. Shareholders obliged — more than 97% voted against scrapping Apple's diversity programs, according to the company's SEC filing (as reported by Reuters and ESG Dive). Roughly 8.84 billion shares opposed the measure; just 2.1 million backed it.
That wasn't a fluke. Costco's shareholders rejected a nearly identical proposal from the same group by 98%. The activist right keeps bringing these votes; the boardrooms keep swatting them down. If you were waiting for Big Tech to get the memo, keep waiting.
The Six-Criteria Breakdown: How Apple Hit 100
Our score isn't a vibe — it's built from six research-based dimensions. Here's where Apple landed on each:
- ESG (10/10): Apple publishes annual Environmental Progress and ESG reports, complete with a dedicated ESG index mapping its disclosures to major reporting frameworks.
- DEI (10/10): Robust Inclusion & Diversity programs — actively defended through that 97% shareholder vote rather than rolled back.
- Pride Sponsorship (25/25): Apple releases a Pride Collection every year — watch bands, watch faces, wallpapers — and sponsors the San Francisco Pride Parade. It shipped a 2025 Pride Collection even amid the political pressure.
- HRC Corporate Equality Index (25/25): A perfect 100% score for more than 20 consecutive years, dating to the very first CEI, and a spot among the businesses earning HRC's Equality 100 Award in 2025.
- Left-Leaning Political Giving (10/10): Apple employees and affiliates direct roughly 88% of their political contributions to Democrats, per OpenSecrets.
- CEO Action & Leadership (20/20): CEO Tim Cook remains one of corporate America's most vocal advocates for LGBTQ+ causes and diversity initiatives.
Add it up and you get a clean 100 — not a company dabbling in progressive politics, but one that has woven them into its corporate identity.
The One Hedge: "May Change"
To be fair — and accuracy matters — Apple hasn't been entirely immune to the shifting legal landscape. Tim Cook has publicly acknowledged that Apple's diversity practices may have to change as courts and regulators redraw the rules (as reported by the BBC). But talk is cheap, and so far the substance has stayed put: Apple's Inclusion & Diversity page is still live, the programs are still running, and the company has given no sign it intends to follow Meta or Target off the DEI cliff. A hedge in an interview is not a retreat in practice.
Prefer to Keep Politics Out of Your Cart? Shop Woke-Free.
You can't easily swap the iPhone in your pocket, but plenty of your electronics and accessory dollars have woke-free homes. From our Non-Woke Technology Brands directory, here are a few alternatives that keep their heads down and their politics off your receipt:
- ClearClick — a woke-free electronics maker (photo and video digitizers, gadgets) with a BWF score of just 4/100.
- SLNT Faraday Bags — privacy-first, signal-blocking gear scored 2/100.
- S&S Electronics — a no-nonsense electronics shop at 1/100, about as far from Apple's 100 as a brand can get.
The Bottom Line
Is Apple woke? By every measure we track, yes — emphatically, and by choice. While a long line of household names spent 2025 backpedaling on DEI, Apple planted its flag and dared its shareholders to make it stop. They declined, 97% to nothing. That's Apple's right. It's also yours to know exactly where your money is going before you tap "buy." A perfect 100 on the BuyWokeFree Woke Scale isn't an accident — it's a mission statement.