After Epic Games, after Spotify, after the publishers of French newspapers, it is therefore Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, who will come up against the commercial policy of the Apple App Store.
The tempestuous billionaire declared “war” on Apple yesterday Monday, assuring that Apple “threatened” to remove Twitter from its application store, essential on iPhones.
“Apple has threatened to remove Twitter from its App Store, but they refuse to tell us why,” said the boss of Twitter, after a series of tweets accusing the Apple brand of censorship and abuse of dominant position.
A “secret tax” well known to all
“Apple has stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America? “, he notably launched, before challenging the leader of the Californian group in these terms: “What is happening Tim Cook? “.
Elon Musk then posted a meme (parody image) depicting a car named “Elon” taking a freeway exit towards “declare war”, instead of going straight towards “pay 30%”.
And this 30% is not unknown to those interested in the Apple ecosystem. Because the giant takes a 30% commission on all purchases made by users of the App Store. What Elon Musk calls a “secret tax”, although it is public. Still, no one knows if it is an announcement or a stroke of blood.
Twitter is 90% dependent on ad revenue
Twitter’s new boss recently had the account of Donald Trump and other banned personalities reinstated after breaking the social network’s rules. And this reversal of moderation policy scares many brands, from General Motors to Pfizer, who have suspended their advertisements on the platform.
In the first quarter this year, Apple was the largest advertiser on the network, spending $48 million, or more than 4% of quarterly revenue. However, the turnover of Twitter depends 90% on advertising revenue.