US President Donald Trump has hit back at the media attention he generated when he appeared to flub Apple CEO Tim Cook's name, claiming he meant to call the executive "Tim Apple" in order to "save time and words".

"At a recent round table meeting of business executives and long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time and words," Trump wrote in a tweet on Monday defending the phrase.

"The Fake News was disparagingly all over this and it became yet another bad Trump story!"

On March 6, Cook attended a meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board at the White House alongside Trump, who introduced Cook by his full name but at one point called him "Tim Apple".

The following day, after the mistake garnered significant media attention -- including a tweet by "The Daily Show", later retweeted by the President's daughter Ivanka, who was at the meeting seated next to Trump -- Cook changed his surname on Twitter to an Apple logo emoji in what many saw as a tongue-in-cheek reference to his new moniker.

Trump similarly flubbed the name of Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson last year, calling her "Marillyn Lockheed".