Elon Musk admits Apple never planned to kick Twitter out of App Store

Elon Musk admits Apple never planned to kick Twitter out of iPhone App Store

• News

Apple isn't threatening to delete Twitter from the App Store, no matter what Elon Musk said earlier.
Photo: Elon Musk/Twitter/Cult of Mac

Elon Musk walked back his claim that Apple was threatening to remove Twitter from the iPhone App Store.

This comes after Musk had 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 on 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 had a meeting with Apple CEO Tim 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, but he has to be aware that his promise to reverse the bans on all Twitter users who had violated Twitter’s previous rules against inciting violence, hate speech, etc. are a red flag for Apple, who has a policy forbidding applications in the App Store from spread hate speech, calls to violence, etc.

All is still not well between Apple and Twitter

Elon Musk’s tweets on Wednesday are a sharp contrast to his inflammatory ones a couple of days earlier, but his meeting with Cook doesn’t seem to have resolved another basic difference between Apple and Twitter: revenue sharing.

There’s little Musk to can do about Apple taking a 15% to 30% cut of revenue passing through the App Store, including Twitter subscription fees. Epic Games went 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 under $200 billion. Apple’s total value is $2.3 trillion – over 10x higher. And Musk is already deeply in debt from buying Twitter, which went for a “mere” $44 billion.