Yesterday, Elon Musk claimed that Apple recently “threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store.”
About ten minutes later, Musk declared, through a meme, that he’s going “to war” with the company.
This is a big deal
Apple’s alleged threat likely has to do with concerns over Musk’s new approach to content moderation on Twitter, as well as the company’s ability to moderate with a skeleton workforce ~25% the size it was a month ago.
- On Sunday, what remains of Twitter’s anti-propaganda team faced a flood of Chinese spam accounts posting adult content to drive attention away from posts about anti-government protests.
- Musk has deep business ties in China with Tesla. His handling of conflicts of interest and their effect on his commitment to free speech has been a concern throughout his Twitter takeover.
Musk also said Apple “has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter.” According to The Washington Post, Apple’s ads accounted for 4%+ of Twitter’s first quarter revenue.
The other thing Musk is taking issue with: Apple’s up to 30% commission fee on the App Store. He will likely see support on this front, since basically everyone from Epic Games to Spotify also despises it.
