Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday walked back his claim that Apple was threatening to remove Twitter from the App Store.
This comes after Musk said he engaged in a “good conversation” with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Elon Musk met with Tim Cook
The new owner of Twitter went on an anti-Apple flame war Monday, posting multiple tweets complaining about the Mac-maker taking 15% to 30% of revenue that passes through its App Store. In addition, Musk said, “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”
Then the billionaire met with Cook on Wednesday, after which he posted, “We resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.”
Musk never gave a reason why he thought the Twitter app would be removed from the iPhone software store. However, he must be aware that his promise to reverse the bans on all users who violated Twitter’s previous rules against inciting violence, hate speech, etc., are a red flag for Apple, which has a policy forbidding applications in the App Store from spreading hate speech, calls to violence, etc.
All is still not well between Apple and Twitter
Musk’s tweets on Wednesday stand in sharp contrast to his inflammatory ones a couple of days earlier. However, his meeting with Cook doesn’t seem to have resolved another basic brewing dispute between Apple and Twitter over revenue sharing.
There’s little Musk can do about Apple taking a 15% to 30% cut of revenue passing through the App Store, including Twitter subscription fees. Epic Games went to a court to escape them … unsuccessfully.
There have been calls from Musk fans for him to resolve the differences by buying Apple, which isn’t realistic. While Musk is the world’s richest man, his total worth is less than $200 billion. Apple’s total value is $2.3 trillion — more than 10 times higher. And Musk is already deeply in debt from buying Twitter, which went for a “mere” $44 billion.
