Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk excoriated Apple after revealing that the company had threatened to strip Twitter from the Apple store and that it stopped advertising on Twitter.
Musk made the accusations on Monday through his official social media account.
“Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?” his tweet read.
Musk posted a poll asking his followers if Apple should “publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers,” which garnered an overwhelmingly positive reaction. He went on to explain in further tweets that Apple had also threatened to pull the Twitter application from the Apple store.
“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” he added.
Apple’s stock dropped by 2.63% by the close of trading Monday, partly because of the criticism from Musk and over civil unrest at manufacturing plants in China where the iPhone is produced.
Musk has previously blamed advertisers fleeing Twitter on pressure they received from activist groups who were upset that he had purchased the platform and promised to allow more free speech.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation, and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk wrote. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
General Motors, General Mills, Pfizer, and Volkswagen were among the companies that paused their advertising campaigns on Twitter soon after Musk acquired the company in a $44 billion deal.
Some on social media responded to the revelation from Musk by calling on people to boycott Apple and trash all their Apple devices if they removed Twitter from their online store.
Others pointed out that Musk was criticizing the company that was reportedly the top ad revenue source for Twitter.
Here’s more about the Musk-Apple feud:
Musk Says Apple Might Block Twitter in App Store www.youtube.com