Elon Musk says he met with Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner after a number of tweets attacking Apple

“Thanks @tim_cook for taking me round Apple’s lovely HQ,” Musk wrote in a tweet, together with a video of a big pond, with two shadows standing within the foreground. 

He adopted it up with one other tweet just some hours later.

“Good dialog. Amongst different issues, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter probably being faraway from the App Retailer. Tim was clear that Apple by no means thought-about doing so.”

The 2 peaceable tweets capped off a number of extra aggressive missives from Musk, who repeatedly referred to as out Apple this week, and at occasions Prepare dinner particularly, over claims that the tech large stopped promoting on Twitter, threatened to take away it from its app retailer, and overcharged firms. (Each Apple and Twitter didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark.)

On Monday, Musk tweeted that Apple had lower off most of its promoting on Twitter. Apple was the highest advertiser on Twitter within the first quarter of this 12 months, spending $48 million on advertisements, in accordance to the The Washington Submit. Apple advertisements accounted for 4% of Twitter’s income that quarter.

“Do they hate free speech in America?” He wrote, including, “What’s happening right here @tim_cook?”

Twitter has misplaced a number of main advertisers since Musk took over the corporate final month, together with Pfizer, Volkswagen, and Chipotle. Latest reporting from tech e-newsletter Platformer revealed that weekly advert bookings for the corporate are down almost 50%, and income in Europe, the Center East, and Africa is down 15%. 

However promoting is only one half of Musk’s downside with Apple. He claimed in one other Monday tweet that the corporate “threatened to withhold” Twitter’s app from its app retailer, however “gained’t inform us why.” 

Advertisers and firms have been distancing themselves from Musk’s Twitter since he started implementing adjustments on the firm earlier this month, largely in response to Musk’s determination to lower many of the platform’s content material moderation staff and the ensuing rise of hate speech noticed on the positioning. 

Getting kicked out of the app retailer could be a significant blow to the social media platform, which is already enduring a interval of utmost tumult. Musk has up to now laid off round 50% of Twitter’s employees in an effort to chop prices, with tons of resigning in current weeks as the brand new CEO brings his trademark “hardcore” work ethic and administration model to the corporate. 

Musk went on to denounce Apple’s “secret 30% tax on all the pieces” in yet one more tweet on Monday, referring to the proportion of income that the corporate takes from app retailer gross sales. Musk might have additionally delayed relaunching the platform’s Twitter Blue subscription service in order that the characteristic may very well be re-tooled as an in-app buy, and keep away from Apple’s payment. 

The payment Apple receives from app downloads is well-known amongst tech firms, with Spotify and Fb father or mother Meta having criticized Apple for the proportion lower up to now.

Epic Video games, the writer of in style videogame Fortnite, even took Apple to courtroom final 12 months over the embedded payment. Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney has criticized Apple’s mannequin as a “monopoly” and not too long ago sided with Musk on the problems between Apple and Twitter.

“Apple is a menace to freedom worldwide,” Sweeney wrote on Twitter this week. “They keep an unlawful monopoly on app distribution, they use it to manage American discourse, and so they’re endangering protesters in China by storing delicate buyer knowledge in a state-owned knowledge middle.”

Billing startup Paddle additionally took Apple to courtroom final 12 months over its cost system, and its CEO Christian Owens not too long ago welcomed Musk as an ally of their case. “It factors to how egregious the 30% payment is. I’m glad Elon is within the battle,” Owens advised Insider this week.

A pondside assembly at Apple HQ will seemingly not be sufficient for Musk to just accept Apple’s obtain payment, though Owens and different CEOs dissatisfied with Apple may quickly discover him to not be essentially the most dependable ally.

Nov. 30, 2022: This story has been up to date to incorporate an extra tweet from Elon Musk.