Publicly attacking the "data industrial complex" is in line with Apple's economical interests.
Publicly attacking the military industrial complex would be opposed to Apple's economical interests (because it might upset a segment of its customers).
It's difficult to judge the sincerity of moral outrage in an attack that aligns with your own economical interests. You may think of it as "empty posturing" but speaking out against a sociopolitical issue you're not directly part of can help bring about changes and can help shape cultural attitudes.
For example, coming out as gay in 2014 wasn't necessarily in Tim Cook's best economical or even personal interest (though those offended or upset by this are less likely to let that affect doing business with him because after all he's still the CEO of one of the largest corporations) but it may have played a small part in changing overall social attitudes (remember that the Supreme Court decision on equal marriage in 2015 only happened after most states had already passed equivalent legislation and public support had been fairly widespread).
You may not be able to change something by calling out. But you certainly don't change it by remaining silent about it and playing along with the status quo.
Cook is only making this statement because it's in Apple's business interest to cripple ad-based competitors by convincing policy makers to hobble them with regulation. He's not a neutral observer.
While I'm sure that's a consideration, it's incredibly cynical to claim that that's the only reason Cook is saying this.
Apple has been extremely firm and open about their commitment to privacy, when they could easily have just gone along with the crowd and harvested data, too. I think it's highly likely that they could have made significantly more money doing that than they do from the people who choose Apple products specifically because of their privacy stance.
Cynicism can make you feel really superior, 'cause you can see through all the BS everyone's spouting to the cold dead hearts inside, while all the people around you think that people actually care about anything but money and power.
But, see, there are actually people who care about something more. And when you fail to recognize that, you enable those who don't, those who benefit from all the not-caring, just that little bit more.
Does Apple really compete with Facebook and ad platforms? Does Apple even really compete with Google? Isn’t the Android competition mostly not Google, e.g. Samsung?
But non-stock Android still typically uses Google services and these integrations are built into the OS. So whether the Android devices are sold by Google or Samsung doesn't really make much of a difference, Google still gets the data it wants.
