SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk takes part in a joint news conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (not pictured) at the SpaceX Starbase, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., August 25, 2022.
Adrees Latif | Reuters
Elon Musk has announced big, albeit confusing, plans for Twitter since he took over the social network last month.
Musk wants to vastly increase the revenue the company makes through subscriptions while opening up the site to more “free speech,” which in some cases seems to mean restoring previously banned accounts like the one owned by former president Donald Trump.
But Musk’s plans for Twitter could put it in conflict with two of the biggest tech companies: Apple and Google.
Tensions are brewing
One of the biggest risks to Musk’s vision for “Twitter 2.0” is the possibility that his changes violate Apple or Google’s app rules in a way that slows down the company or even gets its software booted from app stores.
Tensions are already brewing. Musk complained in a tweet just last week about app store fees that Google and Apple charge companies like Twitter.
“App store fees are obviously too high due to the iOS/Android duopoly,” Musk tweeted. “It is a hidden 30% tax on the Internet.” In a follow-up post, he tagged the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, which is reportedly investigating app store rules.
His complaint is over the 15% to 30% cut Apple and Google take from purchases made inside apps, which could eat into the desperately-needed revenue from Musk’s plans for $8 per month from Twitter Blue subscriptions.
Over the weekend, Phil Schiller, the former head Apple marketing executive who still oversees the App Store, apparently deleted his widely-followed Twitter account with hundreds of thousands of followers.
Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple Inc., speaks at an Apple event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park on September 12, 2018 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
There are signs Twitter has already seen an increase in harmful content since Musk has taken over, putting the company’s apps at risk. In October, shortly after Musk became “chief Twit,” a wave of online trolls and bigots flooded the site with hate speech and racist epithets.
The trolls organized on 4chan, then barreled into Twitter with anti-Black and Jewish epithets. Twitter suspended many of the accounts, according to the nonprofit Network Contagion Research Institute.
Musk’s plan to offer paid blue verification badges have also led to chaos and accounts impersonating major corporations and figures, which have caused some advertisers to shy away from the social network, in particular, Eli Lilly after a fake verified tweet erroneously said insulin would be provided for free.
The app stores noticed.
“And as I departed the company, the calls from the app review teams had already begun,” former Twitter head of trust and safety Yoel Roth wrote this month in the New York Times.
Fees and subscription revenue
Twitter and Apple have been partners for years. In 2011, Apple deeply integrated tweets into its iOS operating system. Tweets that function as official company communications are regularly posted under Apple CEO Tim Cook’s account. Apple has advertised new iPhones and its big launch events on Twitter.
But the relationship appears poised to change as Musk moves to generate a larger bulk of income from subscriptions.
Twitter reported $5.08 billion in revenue in 2021. If half of that comes from subscriptions in the future, as Musk has said is the goal, hundreds of millions of dollars would end up going to Apple and Google — a small amount for them, but a potentially massive hit for Twitter.
One of Apple’s main rules is that digital content — game coins, or an avatar’s outfit, or a premium subscription— that’s purchased inside an iPhone app, has to use Apple’s in-app purchasing mechanism, in which Apple bills the user directly. Apple takes 30% of sales, decreasing to 15% after a year for subscriptions, and pays the remainder to the developer.
One option for Musk is to take an approach similar to what Spotify has done: Offer a lower $9.99 price on the web, where it doesn’t pay Apple a cut, and then users simply log in to their existing account inside the app. Users subscribing to a Premium subscription inside the iPhone app pay $12.99, effectively covering Apple’s fees.
Or Twitter could go further, like Netflix, which stopped offering subscriptions through Apple entirely in 2018.
Musk could sell Twitter Blue on the company’s website at a cheaper price and tweet to his over 118 million followers that Blue is only available on Twitter.com. It might work and could help cut Apple out of any fees.
But that also means Twitter would have to remove many options for informing users about the subscription inside the app, where they’re most likely to make a purchasing decision. And Apple has detailed rules about what apps can link to when telling users about alternative ways to pay.
As Netflix’s app says: “You can’t sign up for Netflix in the app. We know it’s a hassle.”
A power struggle over content moderation
Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, California, U.S., on Monday, June 4, 2018.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Musk faces the power of Apple and Google and their ability to decline to approve or even pull apps that violate their rules over content moderation and harmful content.
It’s happened before. Apple said in a letter to Congress last year that it had removed over 30,000 apps from its store over objectionable content in 2020.
If app store-related problems strike Twitter, it could be “catastrophic,” according to the former Twitter head of trust and safety Roth. Twitter lists app review as a risk factor in filings with the SEC, he noted.
Apple and Google can remove apps for various reasons, like issues with an app’s security and whether it complies with the platform billing rules. And app reviews can delay release schedules and cause havoc whenever Musk wants to launch new features.
In the past few years, the app stores have started more closely scrutinizing user-generated content that starts shading into violent speech or social networks that lack content moderation.
There’s precedent for a complete ban. Apple and Google banned Parler, a much smaller and conservative-leaning site, in 2020 after posts on the site promoted the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and included calls for violence. In Apple’s case, the decision to ban high-profile apps is made by a group called the Executive Review Board, which is led by Schiller — the Apple executive who deleted his Twitter account over the weekend.
Although Apple approved Truth Social, Trump’s social networking app, in February, it took longer for Google Play to approve it. The company told CNBC in August that the social network lacked “effective systems for moderating user-generated content” and therefore violated Google’s Play Store terms of service. Google eventually approved the app in October, saying that apps need to “remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence.”
Musk reportedly fired many of Twitter’s contact content moderators this month.
Apple and Google have been careful while banning apps like Parler, pointing to specific guideline violations like screenshots of the offending posts, instead of citing broad political reasons or pressure from lawmakers. On a social network as large as Twitter, it’s often possible to find content that hasn’t been flagged yet.
Still, Apple and Google are unlikely to want to wade into a difficult battle over what constitutes harmful information and what doesn’t. That could end up inviting public scrutiny and political debate. It’s possible that app stores simply delay approving new versions instead of threatening to remove apps entirely.
Future features could also irk Apple and Google and prompt a closer look at the platform’s current operations.
Musk has reportedly talked about allowing users to paywall user-generated videos — something that former employees think would lead to the feature being used for adult content, according to the Washington Post.
Apple’s App Store has never allowed pornography, a policy that dates back to the company’s founder, Steve Jobs, and Google also bans apps centered around sexual content.
Anything that isn’t safe for work needs to be hidden by default. Twitter currently allows adult content, which could put it even more directly into reviewer sights.
“Apps with user-generated content or services that end up being used primarily for pornographic content … do not belong on the App Store and may be removed without notice,” Apple’s guidelines say.
But Musk often runs towards battles, not away from them. Now he has to decide whether it’s worth taking on two of the most valuable and powerful companies in Silicon Valley over 30% fees and Twitter’s ability to host edgy tweets.
An Apple representative didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Google representative declined to comment. Twitter didn’t respond to an email and the company no longer has a communications department. Musk didn’t respond to a tweet.
Google was on Tuesday hit with an EU antitrust investigation over its use of online content for AI purposes, marking the latest in a series of crackdowns from the bloc on regulating U.S. big tech companies.
The European Commission said it was investigating whether Google had breached EU competition rules by using the content of web publishers, as well as content uploaded on the online video-sharing platform YouTube, for AI purposes.
The probe will examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to that content and placing developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage, the Commission said.
“AI is bringing remarkable innovation and many benefits for people and businesses across Europe, but this progress cannot come at the expense of the principles at the heart of our societies,” said the bloc’s commissioner for competition Teresa Ribera.
“This is why we are investigating whether Google may have imposed unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, while placing rival AI models developers at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules.”
The Commission said it would investigate to what extent the generation of AI Overviews and AI Mode by Google is based on web publishers’ content without appropriate compensation and without the possibility for publishers to refuse without losing access to Google Search.
In September, the EU fined Google nearly 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) for breaching antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.
At the time, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland said the EU decision was “wrong” and the firm would appeal. “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” she said.
EU vs. U.S. big tech
The move follows a slew of actions the bloc has taken against U.S big tech companies in recent days.
The Commission hit Elon Musk’s social media app X with a 120-million-euro ($140 million) fine on Friday for breaching transparency obligations around its advertising repository and “the deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark.'”
Musk called for the European Union to be abolished in response, with key Republican officials also criticizing the decision.
Last week the EU also announced it had opened an antitrust investigation into Meta over its new policy on allowing AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, which it said may breach the bloc’s competition rules.
Signage for Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd. at the company’s factory in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, India, on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tata Electronics has lined up American chip designer Intel as a prospective customer as the division of Mumbai-based conglomerate Tata Group works to expand India’s domestic electronics and semiconductor supply chain.
Under a Memorandum of Understanding, the companies will explore the manufacturing and packaging of Intel products for local markets at Tata Electronics’ upcoming plants.
Intel and Tata also plan to assess ways to rapidly scale tailored artificial intelligence PC solutions for consumers and businesses in India.
In a press release on Monday, Tata said that the collaboration marks a pivotal step towards developing a resilient, India-based electronics and semiconductor supply chain.
“Together [with Intel], we will drive an expanded technology ecosystem and deliver leading semiconductors and systems solutions, positioning us well to capture the large and growing AI opportunity,” said N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons, the principal investment holding company of Tata companies.
Tata Electronics, established in 2020, has been investing billions to build India’s first pure-play foundry. The facility will manufacture semiconductor products for the AI, automotive, computing and data storage industries, according to Tata Electronics.
The firm is also building new facilities for assembly and testing.
India, despite being one of the world’s largest consumers of electronics, lacks chip design or fabrication capabilities.
However, the Indian government has been working to change that as part of efforts to reduce dependence on chip imports and capture a bigger share of the global electronics market, which is shifting away from China.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the partnership with Intel was a “tremendous opportunity” to rapidly grow in one of the world’s fastest-growing computer markets, fueled by rising PC demand and rapid AI adoption across India.
The company is “here to finish what we started,” CEO David Ellison told CNBC, upping the ante with a $30-per-share, all-cash offer compared to Netflix’s $27.75-per-share, cash-and-stock offer for WBD’s streaming and studio assets.
Investors were certainly pleased, sending Paramount shares 9% higher and WBD’s stock up 4.4%.
Another development that traders cheered was U.S. President Donald Trump permitting Nvidia to export its more advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to “approved customers” in China and other countries — so long as some of that money flows back to the U.S. Nvidia shares rose about 2% in extended trading.
Major U.S. indexes, however, fell overnight, as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s final rate-setting meeting of the year on Wednesday stateside. Markets are expecting a nearly 90% chance of a quarter-point cut, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Rate-cut hopes have buoyed stocks. “The market action you’ve seen the last one or two weeks is kind of essentially baking in the very high likelihood of a 25 basis point cut,” said Stephen Kolano, chief investment officer at Integrated Partners.
But that means a potential downside is deeper if things don’t go as expected.
“For some very unlikely reason, if they don’t cut, forget it. I think markets are down 2% to 3%,” Kolano added.
In that case, investors will be waiting, impatiently, for the Fed meeting next year — hoping for a more satisfying conclusion.
Trump allows Nvidia to sell H200 chip to China. But that’s only if the U.S. gets a 25% sales cut, the White House leader said in a Truth Social post on Monday. Trump added that Chinese President Xi Jinping had “responded positively” to the proposal.
China’s trade surplus roared above $1 trillion in November for the first time ever, despite the ongoing global trade war that has resulted in a steep drop in exports to the U.S. In the first 11 months this year, China’s overall exports grew 5.4% compared to the same period in 2024 while imports fell 0.6%.
The rebound in export growth would help mitigate the drag from weak domestic demand, putting the economy on track to deliver the “around 5%” growth target this year, said Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
