>Intel provides financial incentives for manufacturers who build products around their chips.

Yes, but I think the bigger picture, Apple needed Intel's iPhone modem for another year. May not be worth to damage the relationship, not to mention the design were likely finalise some time ago.

I would not be surprised if the Sale of Modem Business to Apple will include agreement to keep Intel CPU on Mac. ( For the time being )

And I am sure AMD should be aiming EPYC at the Datacenter usage of Apple, which is huge in itself, rather then the market of Mac Pro. Although Apple using AMD on Mac would be a pretty big statement to the rest of the market.

That usually involves advertising, but Apple has turned down those offers. Not even an "Intel inside" sticker.

Apple's relationship with Intel is pretty rocky now. Intel fumbled the i9, their Xeon chips aren't keeping up with AMD's workstation offerings, and their efforts to build a cellular modem chip utterly failed, leaving Apple at the mercy of Qualcomm for that part.

I'm sure Apple will cut loose on Intel as soon as they can. They're probably tired of the bullshit.

The financial incentives can cover other chip lines. Apple sells a ton of laptop CPUs and has some preferred partner status with Intel.