Elon Musk and Daniel EK recently had a Twitter exchange that has them joining forces against Apple’s App Store rules.
The online thread began with Musk following up on a subscription offer announcement, explaining that subscriptions might take longer on iOS compared to the web due to Apple having to provide a manual approval. The Twitter CEO said this was in reference to the in-app subscriptions for digital content.
Daniel EK, CEO of Spotify quoted Musk’s tweet and referred to the guidelines as ‘absurd’. As a company, Spotify has been against the platform’s guidelines and has filed antitrust complaints in the EU. The company argued that Apple can have its Apple Music in the platform with zero penalty, while others (like Spotify) will have to pay a 30% cut for having the same app in the App Store. Before, Musk commented that the App Store fees are equivalent to a 30% tax on ‘using the internet’.