Even before President Trump’s tariffs threatened to upend Apple’s manufacturing business in China, the company’s struggle to make new products was leading some people inside its lavish Silicon Valley headquarters to wonder whether the company had somehow lost its magic.

The tariffs, which were introduced April 2, caused Apple to lose $773 billion in market capitalization in four days and briefly lose its standing as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. But investors had already started to sour on the company, sending its share price down 8 percent in the first four months of the year, double the S&P 500’s decline.

Apple had hoped to revive its fortunes over the past year with a virtual reality headset, the Vision Pro, and an artificial intelligence system called Apple Intelligence. Sales of the headset have been a disappointment, however, and the signature features of the A.I. system have been postponed because it didn’t work as well as the company had expected.

The company’s issues underscored how its reputation for innovation, once considered a fundamental element of its brand, has become an albatross, fueling angst among employees and frustration among customers. And company insiders worry that Apple, despite its years of gravity-defying profits, is hamstrung by the political infighting, penny pinching and talent drain that often bedevil large companies, according to more than a dozen former and current employees and advisers.

Apple declined to comment.

It has been a decade since the releases of Apple’s most recent commercial successes: the Apple Watch and AirPods. Its services like Apple TV+ and Fitness+, which it introduced in 2019, lag behind rivals in subscriptions. Half of its sales still come from the iPhone, an 18-year-old product that is incrementally improved nearly every year.

While Vision Pro sales have been disappointing, Apple’s issues with Apple Intelligence exposed dysfunction inside the organization.

In a nearly two-hour video presentation last summer, Apple demonstrated how the A.I. product would summarize notifications and offer writing tools to improve emails and messages. It also revealed an improved Siri virtual assistant that could combine information on a phone, like a message about someone’s travel itinerary, with information on the web, like a flight arrival time.

The A.I. features were unavailable when new iPhones shipped. They arrived in October, about a month late, and quickly ran into trouble. Notification summaries misrepresented news reports, leading Apple to disable that feature. Then, last month, the company postponed the spring release of an improved Siri because internal testing found that it was inaccurate on nearly a third of requests, said three people familiar with the project who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

After the delay, Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief, told employees that the company would reshuffle its executives, removing responsibility for developing the new Siri from John Giannandrea, the company’s head of A.I., and giving it to Mike Rockwell, the head of its Vision Pro headset.

“Apple needs to understand what happened because this is bigger than just rearranging the deck chairs,” said Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst who previously worked as a product marketer at Apple. “If ever there’s been an example of over-promising and under-delivering, it’s Apple Intelligence.” It was the first time in years that Apple hadn’t shipped a product it had unveiled.

Some details of Apple’s changes to its Siri team and challenges were previously reported by Bloomberg and The Information.

The A.I. stumble was set in motion in early 2023. Mr. Giannandrea, who was overseeing the effort, sought approval from the company’s chief executive, Tim Cook, to buy more A.I. chips, known as graphics processing units, or GPUs, five people with knowledge of the request said. The chips, which can perform hundreds of computations at the same time, are critical to building the neural networks of A.I. systems, like chatbots, that can answer questions or write software code.

At the time, Apple’s data centers had about 50,000 GPUs that were more than five years old — far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of chips being bought at the time by A.I. leaders like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta, these people said.

Mr. Cook approved a plan to double the team’s chip budget, but Apple’s finance chief, Luca Maestri, reduced the increase to less than half that, the people said. They said Mr. Maestri had encouraged the team to make the chips they had more efficient.

The lack of GPUs meant the team developing A.I. systems had to negotiate for data center computing power from its providers like Google and Amazon, two of the people said. The leading chips made by Nvidia were in such demand that Apple used alternative chips made by Google for some of its A.I. development.

After this article was published, Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said the company had fulfilled Mr. Giannandrea’s budget request for GPUs over time rather than all at once. She said Mr. Maestri had never asked the team to make its chips more efficient.

At the same time, leaders at two of Apple’s software teams were battling over who would spearhead the rollout of Siri’s new abilities, three people who worked on the effort said. Robby Walker, who oversaw Siri, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, a senior executive with the software team, struggled over who would have responsibility for some aspects of the project. Both ended up with pieces of the project.

The infighting followed a broader exodus of talent from Apple. In 2019, Jony Ive, the company’s chief designer, left to start his own design firm and poached more than a dozen integral Apple designers and engineers. And Dan Riccio, the company’s longtime head of product design who worked on the Apple Watch, retired last year.

In their place, Apple has been left with old and new leaders with less product development experience. Mr. Giannandrea, who joined the company in 2019 from Google, had never led the launch of a high-profile product like the improved Siri. And Mr. Federighi, his counterpart overseeing software, had never led the creation of a new operating system like some of his predecessors in that role.

Mr. Cook, 64, who has a background in operations, has been hesitant over the years to provide clear and direct guidance on product development, said three people familiar with the way the company operates.

“It’s clearly a breakdown of leadership and communication and internal processes,” said Benedict Evans, an independent analyst who previously worked as a venture capitalist at Andreessen Horowitz.

Apple hasn’t canceled its revamped Siri. The company plans to release a virtual assistant in the fall capable of doing things like editing and sending a photo to a friend on request, three people with knowledge of its plans said.

Some of Apple’s leaders don’t think the delay is a problem because none of Apple’s rivals, like Google and Meta, have figured out A.I. yet, these people said. They believe there’s time to get it right.

As the clock ticks on fixing Siri, Apple will be defending the assistant’s current shortcomings. Last month, customers filed a federal lawsuit accusing Apple of false advertising. Since then, its commercials about Siri have gone dark.

Brian X. Chen contributed reporting.

At the end of a three-hour hearing last month, Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, sided with a group of Republicans in a hotly contested debate. He voted to advance the GENIUS Act, a bill backed by the cryptocurrency industry.

“It’s clear that digital assets are here to stay,” Mr. Gallego said after the Senate Banking Committee hearing. Breaking from the committee’s top Democrat, he called the bill a “step in the right direction.”

The vote, 18 to 6, was only preliminary, advancing a bill that will require approval from the full Senate. But in the crypto world, it was celebrated as a moment of vindication.

Mr. Gallego is part of an increasingly influential cohort in Congress: beneficiaries of the crypto industry’s largess. During a tight Senate race last year, he was aided by $10 million from super PACs financed by three large crypto companies, including the Coinbase digital currency exchange. The money funded ads that promoted Mr. Gallego’s military service and support for border enforcement.

Now he and dozens of other lawmakers supported by the super PACs are taking steps in Congress to advance crypto priorities, handing a series of long-awaited victories to an industry with an extensive history of fraud and volatility.

In the Senate, these legislators have thrown support behind the GENIUS Act, which would pave the way for businesses to issue stablecoins, a digital currency designed to maintain a price of $1. And in both chambers, they have voted to repeal a Biden-era rule that required crypto firms to report certain tax information to the Internal Revenue Service.

An industry spending millions of dollars to influence Congress is hardly unusual. But crypto’s political machine has stood out for the scale of its spending — and the speed of the results.

The industry has responded with glee. The spending is already “bearing fruit,” said Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Fairshake, a super PAC that worked with two affiliated PACs to support pro-crypto congressional candidates. “This is a total sea change in terms of how Congress is approaching this industry.”

The crypto legislation is progressing just as U.S. regulators roll back a yearslong enforcement campaign. Since President Trump’s inauguration, the Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped lawsuits against major crypto firms like Coinbase and Kraken, lifting a legal cloud over the industry. An investor in crypto himself, Mr. Trump signed an executive order last month calling for the creation of a national crypto reserve — a government stockpile containing Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

The stablecoin legislation is poised to benefit Mr. Trump’s business interests. At a crypto conference in March, he said stablecoins would “expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar” and called for “common-sense” legislation. A few days later, World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm that his family helped start, announced that it would begin selling a stablecoin called USD1.

The stablecoin bill could go to the Senate floor for a vote in the coming weeks — to the alarm of some Democrats who argue that Congress is giving the industry and Mr. Trump exactly what they want.

The crypto industry has “spent a lot of money, and many of our members are beneficiaries,” said Representative Maxine Waters of California, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “Many of them may not have taken the time to really examine what it is we’re doing.”

Mr. Gallego was not a sponsor of the GENIUS Act, and has said it requires fine-tuning. (The full name is the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act.) But he has also defended the bill, saying it includes protections for consumers.

“Senator Gallego believes it is important to have a seat at the table and work with colleagues on both sides,” Jacques Petit, his spokesman, said in a statement. “It remains the senator’s priority to ensure proper guardrails are in place.”

In an interview, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who was a co-sponsor of the GENIUS Act, said crypto spending had no impact on the legislation.

“If you made your decisions on what you’re for based on who’s giving you the most money, you would fail as a member of Congress,” said Ms. Gillibrand, who was not funded by the crypto super PACs.

During the Biden administration, the industry hired expensive lobbyists to push for federal legislation, without making much headway. The 2024 campaign was a turning point.

A group of crypto executives and political strategists formed Fairshake and two affiliated super PACs, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, which spent over $130 million to influence tight congressional races across the country. The spending was financed mostly by Coinbase, the digital currency business Ripple and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has financed more than 100 crypto start-ups.

Candidates backed by the super PACs won 53 of 58 races. In Ohio, Defend American Jobs spent $40 million to support Bernie Moreno, a Republican crypto entrepreneur who unseated Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chair of the Banking Committee and an outspoken crypto critic. Protect Progress spent $10 million to help Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, win a Senate seat in Michigan. And another $10 million from the super PACs boosted Mr. Gallego, who had spoken favorably about crypto in the past.

The industry has since set out to convert those electoral victories into legislation. Executives at firms like Coinbase, Ripple and Binance, a giant exchange that settled criminal charges with the U.S. government in 2023, have descended on Washington, meeting with lawmakers and posing for photographs on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Their first priority is the bill laying out rules for stablecoins. The second is “market structure” legislation that would ensure most cryptocurrencies are not subject to enforcement lawsuits by the S.E.C., which conducted a crackdown during the Biden years.

Many lawmakers backed by the crypto super PACs are positioned to advance those objectives. Mr. Moreno, Mr. Gallego and Senator Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican who was supported by the PACs, serve on the Senate Banking Committee. Mr. Gallego is also the highest-ranking Democrat on a new Senate subcommittee devoted to crypto.

A draft of the crypto market structure bill is still in the works. But a group of senators, including Senator Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the Banking Committee, introduced the GENIUS Act in February.

In some ways, companies that issue stablecoins are similar to banks. The coins are supposed to be backed by assets that the issuer holds in reserve: If a firm sells one million stablecoins, it should have $1 million in a vault somewhere so customers can redeem the coins at any time.

But over the years, crypto companies have been scrutinized for failing to maintain sufficient reserves. At the same time, stablecoins have become a useful tool for criminals looking to move money across borders.

In theory, the GENIUS Act addresses those problems by outlining rules for stablecoin issuers. But in February, a coalition of consumer groups called the bill “a crypto industry wish list, not an adequate regulatory regime.” They argued that the bill’s requirements were too loose and would create major risks for customers.

Even some crypto enthusiasts have expressed reservations. A provision in the GENIUS Act would allow overseas companies to get around some of its requirements.

When the bill advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee, four Democrats other than Mr. Gallego, none of whom received support from Fairshake, also voted for it, along with Mr. Moreno, Mr. Banks and 11 Republicans who weren’t backed by the crypto PACs.

A similar bill, the STABLE Act, was introduced in the House last month, prompting Democrats to raise concerns that the new rules could benefit Mr. Trump’s crypto business.

“The president of the United States of America should not be using the power of the office to create business that will enrich himself,” Ms. Waters said in an interview.

But after a marathon hearing on April 3, the House Financial Services Committee voted 32 to 17 to move the bill to the full chamber.

The chair of that committee is Representative French Hill, Republican of Arkansas — a longtime crypto supporter, a co-sponsor of the stablecoin bill and the beneficiary of $100,000 in spending by Fairshake.

After more than a week of ratcheting up tariffs on products imported from China, the Trump administration issued a rule late Friday that spared smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics from some of the fees, in a significant break for tech companies like Apple and Dell and the prices of iPhones and other consumer electronics.

A message posted late Friday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection included a long list of products that would not face the reciprocal tariffs President Trump imposed in recent days on Chinese goods as part of a worsening trade war. The exclusions would also apply to modems, routers, flash drives and other technology goods, which are largely not made in the United States.

The exemptions are not a full reprieve. Other tariffs will still apply to electronics and smartphones. The Trump administration had applied a tariff of 20 percent on Chinese goods earlier this year for what the administration said was the country’s role in the fentanyl trade. And the administration could still end up increasing tariffs for semiconductors, a vital component of smartphones and other electronics.

The moves were the first major exemptions for Chinese goods, which would have wide-ranging implications for the U.S. economy if they persist. Tech giants such as Apple and Nvidia would largely sidestep punitive taxes that could slash their profits. Consumers — some of whom rushed to buy iPhones this past week — would avoid major potential price increases on smartphones, computers and other gadgets. And the exemptions could dampen additional inflation and calm the turmoil that many economists feared might lead to a recession.

The tariff relief was also the latest flip-flop in Mr. Trump’s effort to rewrite global trade in a bid to boost U.S. manufacturing. The factories that churn out iPhones, laptops and other electronics are deeply entrenched in Asia — especially in China — and are unlikely to move without a galvanizing force like the steep taxes that the Trump administration had proposed.

“It’s difficult to know if there’s a realization within the administration that reworking the American economy is a gargantuan effort,” said Matthew Slaughter, the dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

The electronics exemptions apply to all countries, not just China.

Still, any relief for the electronics industry may be short-lived, since the Trump administration is preparing another national security-related trade investigation into semiconductors. That will also apply to some downstream products like electronics, since many semiconductors come into the United States inside other devices, a person familiar with the matter said. These investigations have previously resulted in additional tariffs.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Trump was still committed to seeing more of these products and components made domestically. “President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies” and that at his direction, tech companies “are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible,” she said.

A senior administration official, speaking on background because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that Friday’s exemptions were aimed at maintaining America’s supply of semiconductors, a foundational technology used in smartphones, cars, toasters and dozens of other products. Many cutting-edge semiconductors are manufactured overseas, such as in Taiwan.

Paul Ashworth, the chief North America economist for Capital Economics, said the move “represents a partial de-escalation of President Trump’s trade war with China.”

He said the 20 product types that were exempted on Friday account for nearly a quarter of U.S. imports from China. Other countries in Asia would be even bigger winners, he said. Should the tariffs on those countries kick in again, the exemption would cover 64 percent of U.S. imports from Taiwan, 44 percent of imports from Malaysia and nearly a third of imports from both Vietnam and Thailand, he said.

The changes punctuated a wild week in which Mr. Trump backtracked from many tariffs he introduced on April 2, which he had called “liberation day.” His so-called reciprocal tariffs had introduced taxes that would reach up to 40 percent on products imported from some nations. After the stock and bond markets plunged, Mr. Trump reversed course and said he would pause levies for 90 days.

China was the one exception to Mr. Trump’s relief because Beijing chose to retaliate against U.S. tariffs with levies of its own. Instead of pausing tariffs on Chinese imports, Mr. Trump increased them to 145 percent and showed no willingness to spare any companies from those fees. In return, China on Friday said it was raising its tariffs on American goods to 125 percent.

That sent shares of many technology companies into free fall. Over four days of trading, the valuation of Apple, which makes about 80 percent of its iPhones in China, fell by $773 billion.

For now, Mr. Trump’s moderation is a major relief for a tech industry that has spent months cozying up to the president. Meta, Amazon and several tech leaders donated millions to President Trump’s inauguration, stood behind him as he was sworn into office in January and promised to invest billions of dollars in the United States to support him.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has been at the forefront of the industry’s courtship of Mr. Trump. He donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration and later visited the White House to pledge that Apple would spend $500 billion in the United States over the next four years.

The strategy repeated Mr. Cook’s tactics during Mr. Trump’s first term. To head off requests that Apple begin manufacturing its products in the United States rather than China, Mr. Cook cultivated a personal relationship with the president that helped Apple win exemptions on tariffs for its iPhones, smartwatches and laptops.

It had been unclear if Mr. Cook could obtain a similar break this time, and the tariffs Mr. Trump proposed were more severe. As the Trump administration increased its taxes on Chinese goods, Wall Street analysts said Apple might have to increase the price of its iPhones from $1,000 to more than $1,600.

The threat of higher iPhone prices caused some Americans to rush to Apple stores to buy new phones. Others raced to buy computers and tablets that were made in China.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple’s iPhone quickly became a symbol of the tit-for-tat over tariffs with China. On Sunday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and said the tariffs would result in an “army of millions and millions of people screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones” in the United States. Ms. Leavitt said later in the week that Mr. Trump believed that the United States had the resources to make iPhones for Apple.

“Apple has invested $500 billion here in the United States,” she said. “So if Apple didn’t think the United States could do it, they probably wouldn’t have put up that big chunk of change.”

Apple has faced questions about moving some iPhone manufacturing to the United States for more than a decade. In 2011, President Obama asked Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, what it would take to make the company’s best-selling product in the United States rather than China. In 2016, Mr. Trump also pressured Apple to change its position.

Mr. Cook has remained steadfast in his commitment to China and has said the United States doesn’t have enough skilled manufacturing workers to compete with China.

“In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I’m not sure we could fill the room,” he said at a conference in late 2017. “In China, you could fill multiple football fields.”

Additional tariffs on semiconductors and other electronics could come in the next few weeks or months. The administration has signaled it is considering such tariffs under a legal statute known as Section 232, alongside other tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals.

The president has already used the statute to put a 25 percent tariff on imported steel, aluminum and automobiles, and is weighing similar steps for imported lumber and copper. All of those sectors were given exemptions from the so-called reciprocal tariffs that the president announced on April 2.

Speaking to reporters the next day, the president said that other tariffs on chips would be “starting very soon,” adding that the administration was also looking at tariffs on pharmaceuticals. “We’ll be announcing that sometime in the near future,” he said. “It’s under review right now.”

The other tariffs that the Trump administration has applied through Section 232 investigations have been set at 25 percent — much lower than the 145 percent tariff currently in place for many products from China.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.