Apple Claims Software Switching 'Racist' to 'Trump' Is a 'Bug'

An Apple spokesperson claims a "bug" is causing its speech-to-text software to switch the word "racist" to "Trump."

The glitch was initially revealed in a TikTok video in which a user clearly said "racist" into the iPhone, then watched as it was briefly translated to "Trump" before updating to the correct word.

An Apple spokesperson maintained the glitch was a "bug" in the software caused by phonetic overlap between the two words. Other words, including "rampage" and "rampant," also translated to "Trump" before the correct word was provided, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

A former member of Apple's Siri team told The New York Times he doesn't believe it was a technical issue because the word corrected itself. He said he thinks someone added software code to Apple's systems, causing it to write "Trump" whenever someone said "racist."

"This smells like a serious prank," Burkey told the Times. "The only question is: Did someone slip this into the data or slip into the code?"

Apple CEO Tim Cook was one of several billionaires who attended President Donald Trump's inauguration at the White House last month. On Monday, the $3.71 trillion company also announced it will spend more than $500 billion to hire more than 20.000 staff members in the U.S. over the next four years.

Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that the company is doing it because they have "faith in what we are doing, without which, they wouldn't be investing ten cents."