Apple to build $1-billion campus in Texas, plus smaller offices in Culver City and elsewhere

Reporting from AUSTIN, Texas â€”  Apple Inc. will build a $1-billion campus in Austin, Texas, break ground on smaller facilities in Culver City, San Diego and Seattle, and over the next three years expand in Pittsburgh, New York and Colorado.

The tech giant said Thursday that the new campus in Austin, less than a mile from existing Apple facilities, will open with 5,000 positions in engineering, research and development, operations, finance, sales and customer support. The site, according to Apple, will have the capacity to eventually accommodate 15,000 employees.

The three other new locations will increase Apple’s workforce in those cities to more than 1,000 employees each. The company already has a presence in Culver City: Its Apple Music and Beats Electronics headquarters are there, and in January, city officials announced that Apple would lease an entire building in Culver City’s fashionable art gallery district as it seeks to build out its original-content business.

Early this year, Apple said that it would make more than $30 billion in capital expenditures in the United States over the next five years. That, the company said in January, would create more than 20,000 new jobs at existing and new campuses that Apple planned to build.

Where U.S. companies open new facilities or plants has always had the potential for public and political backlash.

That potential has intensified under the Trump administration, which has pushed companies to keep more of their operations in the United States.

While Chief Executive Tim Cook has mostly steered clear of President Trump’s ire, Apple did receive some pushback from the White House three months ago.

Apple sent a letter to the U.S. trade representative warning that the burgeoning trade war with China and rising tariffs could lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers.

Trump in a tweet told Apple to start making its products in the United States and not China.

Apple uses a lot of facilities overseas to produce components and its products, including China.

Top tech executives from Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Qualcomm gathered at the White House this month to discuss strained ties between the administration and the industry, and trade tensions with China. Cook was not among them, nor was Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

There are already 6,000 Apple employees in Austin, its largest operation outside of company headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., where 37,000 people are employed.

“Apple has been a vital part of the Austin community for a quarter century, and we are thrilled that they are deepening their investment in our people and the city we love,� Austin Mayor Steve Adler said in a statement Thursday.

Apple said nearly a year ago that it would begin canvassing the United States for another campus.

Cities offered incentives to attract the company, but Cook avoided a high-profile competition that pitted them against one another as Amazon did over the last year and a half.

Amazon announced in November after a 14-month search it had selected Long Island City in Queens, N.Y., and a site in Arlington, Va., as the joint winners. Each site will employ around 25,000 people.

Cities are eager to bring in more tech employers because companies like Apple and Amazon ladle out six-figure salaries to engineers and other skilled workers.

The infusion of thousands of new and highly paid residents can ripple through an economy, with those employees filling restaurants and theaters, buying property and paying taxes.

Annual pay will vary at the new locations. Apple workers in Cupertino have an average annual salary of about $125,000, according to a report the company submitted to the city.

Times staff writer David Ng contributed to this report.