Elon Musk meets Tim Cook at Apple HQ, says issue of axing Twitter from App store resolved

On 28th November, Elon Musk called out Apple and Apple CEO Tim Cook directly. He said that Apple has by and large stopped advertisements on Twitter and asked Tim Cook if they are against free speech in America. He went on to ask App developers if they have been censored by Apple. Elon Musk also wrote tweets signalling quite clearly that in his view, Apple operates like a monopoly. 

Musk said that Twitter was also threatened by Apple, the threat apparently was that Twitter will be taken off the App store, which would negatively impact the number of active users Twitter has. Musk continued to criticize Apple, especially its policy of charging app developers 30 percent, when their App crosses a certain threshold. However, it now appears that the kerfuffle has been resolved, in large part due to Apple CEO Tim Cook's decision to invite Musk for a face to face talk. 

Musk visited Apple HQ

Musk wrote on Twitter today that he met the Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's headquarters. He said that he had a good conversation with Tim Cook and the misunderstanding was resolved. Musk mentioned that his initial claim i.e. Apple was planning to take Twitter off the App Store, was not accurate. The Twitter CEO wrote that Apple has never considered taking Twitter off the App Store. "Good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so," Musk wrote. He also thanked Tim Cook for taking him around the Apple headquarters, which is commonly known as Apple campus and is located in Cupertino, California. The headquarters is famous in the world of architecture for being a beautiful example of modernist architecture, combining elements of Brutalist architecture . 

Concerns over Apple's policies remain and it has resulted in significant court cases such as the Epic Games versus Apple. Mark Zuckerberg's Meta (earlier Facebook) has also criticised Apple's policies, which undermine Meta's business model. Meta's business model is dependent behavioral advertisement, and behavioral advertisement is not possible if Meta is not allowed to track the likes, dislikes, interests of users. Apple has said that its decisions are designed to protect the privacy of users.