Musk thankful for Apple's support in Twitter turnaround

AppleInsider

Controversial Twitter CEO has again spoken out about Apple and advertising, but this time to publicly thank the firm for sticking with the platform.

Along with many advertisers, Apple reportedly cut its ad spend on Twitter following Elon Musk's taking over as CEO. While existing commitments may actually have meant that Apple did not spend less on Twitter advertising at the time, it was still enough to send Musk raging.

Now according to Variety, Musk has thanked Apple -- and also Disney -- for continuing to be Twitter's biggest advertisers. Musk was speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco on March 7, 2023.

As well as alluding to a few other large advertisers and specifically calling out Apple and Disney, Musk also claimed that his "immediate and drastic action" is saving Twitter from its dire finances.

"There have been a few bumps in the road, but this is to be expected," he said. "Now we have the opportunity to grow [Twitter] into something spectacular."

"I don't want to jinx it or anything," he continued, "but I think we have a shot at being cash flow positive in the second quarter."

While Musk's Twitter raging against Apple was presumably quietened by the company continuing to advertise, at the time his turnaround followed Tim Cook giving him a tour of Apple Park.

Prior to that, he'd claimed Apple was threatening to remove Twitter from the App Store "but won't tell us why." And in his turn he threatened to "make an alternative phone," if Apple did remove it.

Following the Apple Park tour, Musk announced that Apple had "never considered" removing Twitter from the App Store.

Read on AppleInsider

blastdoor

Whatevs -- he'll be singing a different tune every day from now until forever. 

I've been highly skeptical of Musk's Twitter takeover and remain so. However -- I have to admit that Twitter has held up better than I expected. Mastodon has picked up a lot of new users, but my casual impression is that a relatively small share of Twitter's user base has actively moved to primarily using Mastodon (or any other service; but if somebody has hard data rather than casual impressions, I'd love to see it). 

I think for Mastodon et al to really take large number of users away from Twitter, there needs to be more intentional and well-resourced efforts to really make that happen. Given enough time, I think it's more likely than not that such efforts will eventually emerge, given enough time. 

So I think this is a bit of a race. How long will it take for competitors to get their act together to really start going after Twitter's user base? How long will it take for Musk to pull his head out of his a$$? 

foregoneconclusion

Musk has an extensive track record of misleading public comments about Tesla so I wouldn't think that's going to improve with a company that isn't even publicly traded. In February, it was nothing but reports about Twitter being reduced to offering "fire sale" Super Bowl advertising packages.

mikethemartian

The last I heard he was mocking an employee with a disability,

danox

Twitter under the Elon Musk Clown show is just going down piece by piece…….

$44 billion pissed into the wind.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/web-guru-why-twitter-is-falling-apart-under-elon-musk/article_564d67ae-bd17-11ed-aeba-570b41d44291.html

veggiedude

Tesla does no favors by keeping out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. But you don’t see the CEO’s of the perspective companies bitching about that. Maybe they should? 

Cesar Battistini Maziero

Musk is making Twitter great again! He saved the platform.

Here in Brazil, the employees where all leftists, and they where blocking posts from the right wing party!

All that was pushed on my feed was left propaganda.

He is making the platform a safe haven for freedom of expression.

davidmalcolm

Honestly, Apple really missed an opportunity here to cut off Musk’s balls. And if somebody from Apple isn’t phoning him up and telling him to keep their name out of his mouth, they’re not doing their job. 

blastdoor

veggiedude said:

Tesla does no favors by keeping out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. But you don’t see the CEO’s of the perspective companies bitching about that. Maybe they should? 

Nah, it’s a weak play. Just work quietly to help Tesla’s competitors. 

s.metcalf

davidmalcolm said:

Honestly, Apple really missed an opportunity here to cut off Musk’s balls. And if somebody from Apple isn’t phoning him up and telling him to keep their name out of his mouth, they’re not doing their job. 

Exactly this.  He’s a grade-A arsehole no matter which way you look at it.  He’s a narcissist Trump admirer-apologist and doesn’t give a crap about even his own workers who are largely responsible for everything he owns.  He can’t help making a total git of himself, time and time again, because for him, any publicity is good publicity.

He’s a huge liability and Apple would do well to stay well clear of the jerk and to stop supporting him while he turns twitter into a right ring shit-show.

And to those above who claim that he stands for free speech, well he sure can’t handle criticism of himself or his platform and routinely deletes posts he doesn’t like while artificially boosting his own and banning independent left-leaning journalists who’ve done nothing except expose him and his fellow right-wing nutters for their lies while simultaneously letting the right spew complete garbage.  Yeah, that’s really freedom of speech isn’t it?

smalm

"Controversial" = the leftists hate him and breathe fire and brimstone