Apple banning Twitter? Not happening, Musk says after visiting Cook

Apple never planned to remove Twitter from its App Store, after all, Elon Musk said after meeting with the company’s CEO. 

The new Twitter owner said he visited with Apple CEO Tim Cook and learned the brewing battle between Apple and Twitter was the equivalent of fake news. 

“We resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so,” Mr. Musk tweeted Wednesday. 

The tentative truce between Twitter and Apple’s leadership comes after Mr. Musk pledged to challenge Apple if the tech giant booted Twitter’s app from its store. 

Mr. Musk said last week he would make new phones to compete with Apple and Google’s products if they sought to restrict Twitter from their app stores. Earlier this week, Mr. Musk said Apple threatened to withhold Twitter from the App Store without explanation. 

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO’s fury boiled over on Monday, as Mr. Musk published a flurry of tweets questioning Apple’s censorship practices, fees and advertising decisions. 

While Mr. Musk has halted his public criticism of Apple, other prominent tech executives appear to be pining for a larger fight. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose company operates Facebook and Instagram, ripped Apple’s business practices at the New York Times DealBook conference on Wednesday. 

“I do think Apple has sort of singled themselves out as the only company that is trying to control, like unilaterally, what apps get on the device and I don’t think that’s a sustainable or good place to be,” he said. 

The fight between Facebook and Apple spans several years. In 2020, Facebook responded to Apple’s privacy changes with critical ads in major newspapers that cast Apple as an opponent of small businesses and a free internet. 

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Mr. Cook answered Mr. Zuckerberg’s complaints in 2020 in a tweet saying Facebook could continue to track users on Apple devices after the privacy changes so long as the social network asked for people’s permission.