President Trump Is Lashing Out Over the 'Tim Apple' Snafu, Claims He Said It to 'Save Time and Words' Apple CEO Tim Cook and Ivanka Trump, who was also at the meeting, have seen the funny side of the incident.

Donald Trump is trying to style it out over one of his more bizarre moments.

The U.S. president was widely ridiculed last week for referring to Apple CEO Tim Cook as "Tim Apple" during a meeting at the White House.

Cook, who was right next to Trump, made light of the incident, later replacing his last name with the Apple logo on his Twitter profile. Ivanka Trump, who sat on the other side of her father, also laughed it off.

Trump initially claimed he did say "Tim Cook," according to the Axios reporter Jonathan Swan.

Swan reported on Sunday that as the president was entertaining donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday night, he told the audience he had actually said "Tim Cook Apple" -- just quickly, pronouncing "Cook" quietly. He later turned to a favorite line of attack, calling out the "fake news" for focusing on the remark.

The Axios report said donors in the room were mystified. "I just thought, why would you lie about that," one told Swan.

On Monday, however, Trump told a different story, tweeting that he did say "Tim Apple" -- to save time.

"At a recent round table meeting of business executives, & long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words," he said. "The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!"

Trump just called Apple CEO Tim Cook "Tim Apple" pic.twitter.com/gTHHtjWvc9

— Sean O'Kane (@sokane1) March 6, 2019