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Elon is on the warpath again, this time Apple is in his crosshairs. He made a bunch of tweets this morning about Apple being anti free speech. This pertains to two possible developments: Apple possibly stopping advertising on Twitter. And Apple threatening action against the Twitter app, according to Musk (Apple has not confined either). [1] I don't see how these are related. Apple's cutting ad spending does not imply it being anti-speech or anti-Musk or whatever. But the timing is suspicious. Elon by going up against Apple has met his match. This not the NYTs, but a 2-trillion dollar company that is like an economy in and of itself. it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Apple has the power to create or destroy businesses , through its app or supply line .
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/28/musk-apple-app-store-twitter/
Edit: because twitter is fully privately owned, it does not have to report anything, incl financials, so it's impossible to know how it's doing, unless, I suppose, it goes bankrupt and shuts down completely, or if secondary analytic firms show a major drop in traffic, or employees with insider info leaking financials an other metrics. People are speculating about what will happen to Twitter, but we will have no way of knowing. It's step step above in secrecy than an already public company undergoing a new management; we're talking new management + secrecy.
Which isolates him more and more. He needs allies, not more conflicts. He should phone Tim Cook and cozy up to him and other powerful CEOs, not be a pain in the ass to them. He should court the White House and lobby his interests in Washington, not pointlessly antagonize politicians.
I think he is in an especially bad feedback loop on Twitter, with sycophants cheering his antics (shitposts), which will crash and burn him. Also his personality is thriving on adversity, he is amused by conflict, but that won’t make him friends or build coalitions.
Is Apple willing to fight?
Their advertising won’t come back. But I don’t see them removing Twitter app without a good reason (eg data leak of users, increased hate). Maybe Musk will do stupid subscription shenanigans to avoid the 30% cut in the AppStore/Playstore.
I don't think it works this way. Cozying with Tim Cook is not just about having a dinner and a few beers and cracking some jokes. I'd guess that it would involve concessions probably around censorship or letting some actors inside the company to guarantee compliance with Apple's interests or something like that.
Just an interesting sidenote, Tim Cook's net worth is apparently around 1.8 billion which is hundred times less than what Elon Musk has. But of course Cook is in control of company thousand times more valuable than his wealth. This is the problem I see in these top echelons of PMC. You have hired CEOs who enforce their own culture and habits that may be largely orthogonal to interests of companies and shareholders they manage. This is even more pronounced when we are talking about large financial corporations like Vanguard (managing $8.1 trillion) or Blackrock (managing $8.5 trillion) with their CEOs of Mortimer J. Buckley and Larry Fink net worth of probably in hundreds of millions up to a billion at high end. I am absolutely unsurprised if at certain points these professional workers kind of stop caring about money and may smell too much of their own farts, gathering in various exclusive locations like at Davos and coming up with ideas like ESG or other initiatives to basically utilize the company's power and resources they are hired to manage to leave larger imprint on society to satisfy their power trips.
I think there may be something rotten when it comes to modern corporate structure, it starts to resemble a government with quite a large difference between interest of managers (politicians) and shareholders (electorate). To me it resembles more and more structure of the past where kids of nobility got plucky jobs as governors of provinces or as army officers exactly to get status and power in order implement their own personal or family or wider network interests.
Agreed. A big problem in the modern corporate world is that CEOs and other leaders have basically no accountability. The fashion of giving them large golden parachutes or exit packages only exacerbates the problem. Why do you think Disney had to crawl back to Bob Iger to find a competent CEO?
I've done some wanton speculation about the reason CEO pay is so 'inflated' and it seems like there was previously a culture where internal promotion would lead to qualified candidates arising from within the company itself who were already deeply familiar with it's inner workings and deeply entrenched in the culture, and thus were at least partially motivated less by salary and perhaps something like actual loyalty to the company.
But now for some reason, such internal progression is extremely rare and when it's time to find someone with the demonstrated talent of running a huge corporation the talent pool is extremely small. So you're left to pick from guys who either already operated in the CEO/leadership role in a large company, or at least have some leadership experience, maybe in a smaller company and/or has the academic qualifications like a prestigious business degree.
My guess is that there's probably just fewer businesses being formed and grown to large size than there used to be. Thus, compared to the number of existing multibillion dollar companies that need leaders, there aren't so many candidates that a board of directors would feel they could justify to the shareholders.
Alternative explanation is that these large corporations are also existing in kind of incestuous environment. CEOs of various companies know each other and are sitting on boards of various companies together, or they can influence these companies by different means - such as controlling access to technology or market etc. Everybody knows how huge corporations can get what they want from government regulators and other actors, I see no reason not to think that they use similar underhanded tactics against or together with each other. I can easily see a conversation between Cook and Iger along the lines of: "You hire my nephew for this position in Apple and in exchange we will contract company of your nephew for that project at Disney".
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The theory I've heard is that the Biden admin was making some demands of him backed by threats of prosecution over some of his statements about Tesla self driving and such.
So the Twitter purchase and subsequent shitposting are efforts to build friends on the Republican side and make any prosecution look political.
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Supposedly, google also is considering removing Twitter from their store but for some reason Musk is focusing on Apple (share of market and revenue I guess)
I wouldn't be surprised if this were true though, everything is looking like a conspiracy lately, advertisers suddenly stop spending on Twitter while most "news articles" in either English or Spanish I see are biased against Musk and Twitter ("lack of moderation" is a very popular phrase now) and also lean towards the "right wing" cesspool narrative, were "right wing" is always bad.
Add this to the internet outcry and #StayWoke tshirts it's getting interesting.
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I would have thought that Apple giving the appearance of sticking it to Musk would have resulted in more cheerleading from those who'd like Musk to fail (or think he already is). I wonder if the relative lack of praise, from my perspective anyway, has to do with the rather nasty bit of news concerning Apple restricting air drop functionality for their Chinese consumers (one would think, at the behest of the CCP).
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It wouldn't be that surprising if Apple or Google removed Twitter for similar reasons that they removed Parler (since reinstated) and Truth Social (removed on Google at least) given the current state of activism and information warfare. That it also provides leverage in terms of an advertisement business relationship might make it more likely.
Apple won’t touch this. They would be risking hundreds of billions of revenue by doing anything.
Microsoft was sued for bundling software on antitrust grounds. Apple does not want an antitrust fight.
The wokes greatest advantage is highly profitable firms don’t want to fight them. If the woke puts apples entire business model at risks and 44 billion in litigation from musks then they will find a fight they will lose. Getting apple to spend a billion a year hire about of DEI staff in HR is completely different than threatening their business model.
All it takes is an "AOC" like politician to "ask nicely" the NGO machinery and it will happen. Doubly so if it can be pinned on a random mass shooting. Before the deets are up and the shooter is infact a gay latino woman the app will be pulled by the apropriate "Diversity and inclusion" people on hand.
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Is it possible that Musk is fully aware of this and overreacting to a minor comment someone from Apple made as a publicity stunt so that when they fail to remove him (since they never seriously planned to anyway) he can point to it as a win? Or is that too much 4D chess to be realistic?
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High IQ is associated with high educational achievement is associated with high income is associated with living in coastal metropolitan areas is associated with liberalism; and corporations go where the money is.
Cest La Vie.
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Ironically since Twitter Blue is an in-app-purchase restricted to iOS Elon has actually directly enriched Apple rather than the usual secondary halo effects of iOS users getting their birdsite fix. Not carrying an app is the opposite of bundling, Apple isn't offering their own alternative social media ecosystem. Zoomed out much of the censorship as it does exist comes from various organs of government as much as activist wings so engaging in it with tacit regulator approval is unlikely to provoke institutional response.
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Google, Apple, and even Microsoft (again) have moved so far past the grounds on which Microsoft lost that original anti-trust case, they now believe they have a blank check. They probably aren't wrong. They've already sprinted well past the line in the sand that case drew, and have left it far, far behind. There is simply no political will to enforce anti-trust law on big tech. They aren't up and coming industries anymore. They are major political donors, and among the only bright spots on the American economy. They are untouchable.
I still think there’s a line where they won’t want to poke the bear and trigger a serious case that leads to precedence and stricter enforcement.
What bear? Silicon Valley has more power to get officials who oppose them voted out of office than officials in office have to regulate them. Silicon Valley is the bear!
I think you overestimate their power.
How many battleships does Apple control? Sure they can do some psychological warfare.
And how popular would it be if Apple was found to be directly donated $500 million to a pac specifically targeting pro regulation officials.
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The risk for Apple in banning Twitter would be massive. House Republicans would launch investigations and if a Republican President is elected in 2024, anti-trust actions would certainly follow. These actions would likely be politically popular as well. It would also place Democrats in the awkward position of defending a gigacorp whose entire business model is built on exploiting labor in China.
Apple has nothing to gain and everything to lose here, and Elon Musk knows it.
Edit: It looks like DeSantis is already all over this and is calling for a Congressional response should Twitter be taken off the App Store.
Arguments a la politics have the problem that they're nearly universally generalizable. What makes this view more likely than "The risk for Apple in not banning Twitter would be massive. Senate Democrats would launch investigations, and the Democratic President will push anti-trust actions"?
Presumably because taking an action exposes one to liability in a way that just maintaining the status quo does not.
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Big if, when you are only allowed to talk about or hear what they let you. How many votes do you think censorship of the Hunter Biden Laptop story shifted? How many votes did banning the_donald shift? How many votes did shadow banning shift?
These people are going all in because they think the turnkey fascism built up in the US over the preceding decades is finally within their grasp. I'm not convinced they are wrong.
CNN/NYT haven't deigned to address the issue you raise, so it's not an issue of import. Even here.
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If apple + google did , then it would possibly open up an investigation for collusion. Only Apple, I dunno. The ramifications would huge though, so I agree it will likely not happen.
Why? Apple, Google, Stripe, Facebook, Mastercard, Cloudflare, etc have all gang fucked numerous businesses because "hate" and there have been no investigations. Why is Twitter some sort of final straw?
They'll do it, because they've done it before, and nobody will do shit, because nobody has before.
they have combined 100% market share of app downloads and act as gatekeepers. If they wanted to be smart about making it look less obvious, Apple could ban it and then a few months later Google also ban it. There would have to be some sort of provocation to justify it. Banning the twitter app for no obvious reason would arouse even more suspicion. Maybe plant some fake hate speech content and blame musk for not doing enough.
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The antitrust case rises significantly if Apple cut twitter and it died.
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The actual order of Musk’s tweets implies that he thinks withdrawing advertising dollars is suppressing free speech, which is a perverse concept of “free speech”, wherein a private company is compelled to put their ad dollars towards another company. And let’s put aside it could be something to do with Musk firing a huge percentage of the ad sales and marketing teams, and Apple doesn’t want to throw money into some black hole where they aren’t getting analytics back.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1597285572699074560
It's not what they do, it's why they do it.
If the reason for Apple's withdrawal of advertising dollars is "I'm knowingly and nefariously trying to use my money to pressure you into silence" then I'd say it would take a perverse concept of free speech to not see that as violating it.
This has really jumped the shark.
It’s not “pressure into silence” to say that a firm doesn’t want their brand advertising shown alongside content they don’t like.
I don’t see lots of firms advertising on PornHub or DraftKings, that doesn’t imply they don’t believe PH l/DK can do their thing.
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What is the evidence that the motivation is silencing Musk or Twitter rather than, say, that Musk's recent wave of unbannings includes many accounts that violate Apple's objectionable content policy for apps?
You mean... the public list of speech they want to suppress? That makes Apple even more obviously an enemy of Free Speech. They already strong-armed Tumblr into banning porn.
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When the major advertisers, including competitors, get together and decide they won't advertise on platforms which don't agree to their political censorship, is that somehow offensive to "free speech"?
No, it is not. Freedom of speech does not oblige companies to give money to any particular platform for any particular reason.
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Historically, no. America is the country of tar and feathers, riding muck-raking newspapermen out of town on a rail, and mobs smashing up printing offices.
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"compelled" is a nice choice of words there. Is saying "you'd better not advertise with this company because we don't like what they say" compelling anyone? Is organizing a cartel with ink companies to deny a publisher ink if they print books you don't like compelling anyone?
Something seems perverse there to me, but it's not the concept of free speech.
This analogy precisely reverses the relationship between Apple and Twitter. Apple is a customer of Twitter, not a supplier. Apple pays Twitter for the privilege of advertising on their platform. Am I hostile to freedom of speech because I don't buy a book because of its ideological content?
Not only that, but the advertising necessarily appears alongside the content to which they object. How could you convince them that consumers don’t see and associate the as to the content that’s directly next to it.
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If you buy 200,000 books a year, have a history of using your ogliopsony power to control the content of books, and your decision is coincident to an avowed campaign to impede the distribution of ideologically-disfavored books by coordinating book buyers... yes, obviously yes.
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