Hardly a day goes by without news from Twitter. Elon Musk has now taken on what was once the company’s biggest advertising customer: Apple. According to Musk, the iPhone company has even threatened to ban Twitter from the App Store.
After his takeover, Elon Musk has brought Twitter anything but into safe waters. After verification chaos, a wave of layoffs and a general amnesty, the boss has now chosen a new enemy.
Because on Monday, Musk took on Apple. Until recently, the iPhone company was one of the short message service’s most important advertising customers. But like many other companies, Apple has largely stopped its advertising spending in the wake of the Twitter chaos.
What does Elon Musk have against Apple all of a sudden?
On Monday, Musk wrote in a tweet that Apple had “largely stopped” advertising on its platform. He followed that message with a question, “Do they hate freedom of speech in America?”
But that was not enough. Less than an hour later, Musk announced that Apple had “also threatened to ban Twitter from its App Store. However, there was no explanation from the iPhone company.
This is how valuable Apple is as an advertising customer
Elon Musk’s anger about the lack of advertising money from Apple is quite understandable when you look at the figures. After all, the iPhone company didn’t just spend peanuts on Twitter.
In fact, Apple was the social network’s largest advertiser in the first quarter. That’s according to a document quoted by the Washington Post.
According to the document, Apple spent 48 million US dollars on advertising on the short message service in the first quarter alone. This was more than four percent of Twitter’s revenue for the quarter, it said.
Could Apple really kick Twitter out of the App Store?
Apple could well ban the app from the App Store. After all, as soon as the platform fails to adhere to security guidelines or problematic content is published there, Apple can step in.
It would not be the first time that Apple banned a popular app from its App Store because the operators did not follow the rules.
The chaos at Twitter in China over the weekend showed how quickly the short message service can sink into spam. Greatly reduced or, in some cases, non-existent moderation teams do the rest.
Should Apple actually take this step, users would no longer be able to download the app onto their iPhones. Existing users would no longer be able to access updates.
Elon Musk responded to the threat by criticizing Apple’s market power. He shared a link to a parody video that the game maker Epic had created after its App Store sacking.
