Elon Musk claims to have visited Tim Cook amid Twitter’s ‘battle’ with Apple

CEOs give no indication of what was discussed during apparent meeting

Andrew Griffin
Wednesday 30 November 2022 17:49 EST
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(AFP via Getty Images)

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Elon Musk appears to have taken his “battle” with Apple to the company’s campus, according to a new tweet.

Twitter’s new owner posted a tweet suggesting that he had visited Tim Cook at Apple’s campus, just over a day after he declared war on the company.

Mr Musk had complained on Twitter that Apple’s 30 per cent cut on all payments through the App Store is unfair, that it had stopped buying advertising on Twitter, and said that it had threatened to pull its app from iPhones.

He used all of those complaints to suggest that Apple was fighting against free speech, and suggested that he was aiming to fight against the company.

But the new tweet suggests the two chief executives may have discussed Twitter’s future in the App Store.

Mr Musk gave no information about whether he had discussed the future of Twitter on iPhones and in the App Store.

Apple is notoriously private about its business operations and rarely discusses its conversations with developers. It did not immediately respond to a request to comment from The Independent.

But some pointed out that Tim Cook did appear to be visible as a shadow in Mr Musk’s video.

Mr Musk’s post came just an hour after Twitter posted a blog post announcing the arrival of “Twitter 2.0”, in which it looked to reassure users and advertisers that it would still be enforcing its rules. Various reports have suggested both that Twitter is weakening its content moderation policies as well as the teams that exist to enforce them.

But the new report claimed that Twitter’s trust and safety team “continues its diligent work to keep the platform safe from hateful conduct, abusive behavior, and any violation of Twitter’s rules”. “The team remains strong and well-resourced, and automated detection plays an increasingly important role in eliminating abuse,” it wrote.

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