Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Apple threatened to block Twitter from its App Store without explaining why in a series of tweets that also indicated the company might stop advertising on the social media platform.
He added that Apple is pressuring Twitter regarding content moderation demands. Although the company has routinely enforced its rules, he said, and has previously removed apps like Gab and Parler.
Apple brought back Parler, which is popular with American conservatives, in 2021 after the app updated its content, the companies said at the time.
“Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter,” Musk, who owned Twitter for $44 billion last month, said in a tweet. Do they hate freedom of speech in America?
The world's most valuable company spent an estimated $131,600 on Twitter ads between November 10 and November 16, down from $220,800 between October 16 and October 22, a week before Musk took the Twitter deal.
The Washington Post reported, citing an internal Twitter document, that in the first quarter of 2022, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, spending $48 million and accounting for more than 4% of total revenue for the period.
The US federal government has advised to pause Twitter advertising following mass layoffs at the company.
Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, said earlier this month that Twitter had seen a "massive" drop in revenue and blamed activist groups for pressuring advertisers. Ad sales represent about 90 percent of Twitter's revenue.
In the past few days, the platform has reinstated the account of former US President Donald Trump, as well as comedian Kathy Griffin and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative of the US House of Representatives.
Trump's reinstatement prompted a coalition of civil rights activists to say last week that they were urging Twitter advertisers to issue statements about pulling their ads from the platform.
Among the list of complaints Musk tweeted about were the 30% fees Apple charges software developers for in-app purchases, with Musk posting a meme suggesting he was willing to “go to war” with Apple rather than pay a commission.
