The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA
August 20th, 2026Via: Wall Street Journal:
Without CIA funding that helped keep NeXT afloat in the ’80s, Steve Jobs might not have made a triumphant return to Apple—and the iPhone might not have its foundational operating code.
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“How many units are you prepared to deliver on an annual basis?” Romello asked.
“That’s privileged information,” Jobs shot back.
“Is it more than 20,000? That’s what I want to buy: 20,000 units,” Romello said. “And I want ’em this year, but I want ’em with two modifications.”
The customization Romello had in mind wouldn’t be handled by Jobs or NeXT. The intelligence customer wanted a faster chip, supplied by Motorola, and a special graphics card, from Intel. “We never told him what we were really after,” Romello said. “We didn’t give him a copy of the chip. They were done aftermarket by us, by our proxies.”
He may not have known exactly what the CIA was planning to do with his computers, but Jobs was eventually granted a top-secret security clearance so he could visit classified facilities.
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Publicly, NeXT said it had a contract with the federal government as part of a partnership with ESL. Even inside the government, the CIA’s involvement was shielded; the National Security Agency was the official buyer, according to Dain Ehring, who worked with Romello on the NeXT contract.
