SAN FRANCISCO – Mr Elon Musk said Apple has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter, further de-escalating a brewing war between two of the world’s most influential tech companies.
Mr Musk made the comments during a Twitter Spaces conversation on Saturday, adding that Apple is the largest advertiser on the social media network. The billionaire, who didn’t elaborate further on Apple, spoke for more than two hours from his private plane during the chat, which had more than 90,000 listeners.
Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Musk blasted Apple last week, accusing the maker of iPhones and Mac computers of mostly stopping advertising on Twitter and threatening to withhold the site from its App Store. In taking aim at Apple, Mr Musk risked a war with the world’s most valuable company and a top advertisers at a time when other companies were pulling their marketing from Twitter.
Following his barrage of attacks on Apple, Mr Musk met with Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and said the two had a “good conversation” and “resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store”. Mr Musk said Mr Cook was “clear that Apple never considered doing so”.
In a separate development, Amazon.com is planning to restart advertising on Twitter at about US$100 million (S$135 million) per year, pending some security tweaks to the social media company’s ads platform, according to a Platformer reporter tweet on Saturday.
Amazon did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment on the matter.
Since Mr Musk’s takeover, a string of companies have suspended advertising on Twitter, including General Mills and Pfizer, following uncertainty over whether the platform will revise its policies to combat hate speech and misinformation. On Saturday, Mr Musk posted a tweet thanking advertisers for returning to Twitter.
Twitter’s new approach for verifying accounts had also allowed trolls to impersonate major brands. Mr Musk said that he hopes to revive the company’s verification programme in the next week after it had been paused to deal with imposters. BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
