Skip to main content

Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou had a MacBook, iPhone and iPad when she was arrested

Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou had a MacBook, iPhone and iPad when she was arrested

/

Does she not know that her company’s laptop is exceptional?

Share this story

The Huawei Matebook X Pro.
The Huawei Matebook X Pro.
Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

This is not a piece of serious news. I don’t think it’s a huge indictment that Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou — who’s currently under house arrest in Canada while she fights extradition to the US — happened to be carrying a 12-inch MacBook, an iPhone 7 Plus, and an iPad Pro when she was taken into custody.

Because even though that’s a matter of record now...

And even though it’s a little bit embarrassing because she’s both the CFO and the founder’s daughter...

And even though Huawei has publicly demoted employees for damaging the brand by tweeting from an iPhone...

...we do live in the year 2019, when most tech companies don’t require their employees to use company-issued electronics for personal use. Microsoft and Google employees sometimes walk around using iPhones and MacBooks and iPads. I’ve seen it. It’s not a huge deal.

Here’s what gets me, though: We at The Verge called Huawei’s Matebook Pro X the single best laptop you can buy right now. Does she just not like Windows, perhaps?

She does have good taste in Huawei phones, though. Court documents show she was also carrying a Huawei Mate 20 RS Porsche Edition, also known as the luxury version of a phone we called “the best America can’t get.” As to the iPhone 7 Plus, it’s hard to speculate — but one could generously imagine it might have served as an excellent mobile hotspot during her time in North America.