With one bizarre tweet after another, Elon Musk shows no signs of slowing down his barrage of Twitter rants: From provoking conspiracy theories to sharing views of his bedside table—which includes four cans of Diet Coke, two guns, and a painting of George Washington—Musk has left Twitter users and employees irritated and on edge for what outlandish antics will come next. But today is a new day, meaning a new public fit, and another addition to Musk’s growing list of enemies.
However, Musk’s latest foe could cost him more than $44 billion, and might even end up severing ties among Silicon Valley titans. Here’s the latest from the Twitter drama.
Musk’s meltdown du jour. On Monday, Musk shared his disappointment with Apple for pulling most of its advertising from Twitter and asked, “Do they hate free speech in America?” He later tagged Apple CEO Tim Cook, who did not respond.
Could Apple ban Twitter? In another tweet, Musk accused Apple of threatening to kick the social media platform off of its App Store.
The sticking point. Musk also suggested that Apple might be pushing Twitter in regard to the lack of content moderation. Earlier this month, Musk fired the outsourced content moderators who were tasked with tracking content and enforcing Twitter’s content guidelines. In the past, Apple’s stance on content moderation has moved platforms like Discord and Tumblr to tighten their guidelines, and also pushed right-wing platforms, like Parler, off of the App Store until they changed their policies.
Apple’s blank feed. As far as reputations go, Apple likes to keep a clean-cut profile, mostly free of stunts and gimmicks. Hence, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Apple deleted all of its tweets, and its Twitter feed is now completely blank.
Where does Twitter go from here? That might be up to Musk’s mood at the moment, but picking fights with bigwigs like Apple might not bode well for him, especially if he wants to maintain the power of his network in Silicon Valley.
