The irony of two tax-dodgers claiming moral superiority over another has not occurred to either, apparently.

Apple’s chief executive blasted tech giants like Google and Facebook that have insisted that collecting user data is necessary to deliver useful products.

“It’s a bunch of bunk”, Cook told HBO’s “Vice News Tonight.”

“The narrative that some companies will try to get you to believe is: ‘I’ve got to take all of your data to make my service better. “Well, don’t believe them.”

Cook smugly claimed that Apple’s policy is to “collect as little data as possible” because privacy is “one of the most important issues” of the century.

Of course, he didn’t mention the fact that Apple does not have to sell data because it charges an arm and leg for its products and strong arms suppliers into making cuts to push its margins out further.

Apple also has been involved in price fixing cartels which have forced its customers to pay more. So really the moral high ground is not a place that Cook can stand without him spontaneously combusting.

Cook does not seem to realise how alike he is to Facebook. With a total lack of self-awareness, he said Apple could make “a ton” of money if it viewed its customers as products, but that it “elected not to do that”.

Mark Zuckerberg pointed out that unlike Apple, Facebook’s free, ad-driven networks were not “just serving rich people” or those with more money than sense.