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Elon Musk denies demanding to become Apple CEO; says Apple’s App Store fees are a ‘de facto global tax on the internet’

Tesla founder Elon Musk took to Twitter today to deny claims that he’d once asked to be the CEO of Apple. A new book claims that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Musk spoke on the phone about a potential Apple acquisition of Tesla. The book claims that Musk asked to be CEO of Apple, at which point the author claims Cook said “F– you” and hung up the phone.

Musk denies the claim categorically:

Elon Musk
Juli Clover for MacRumors:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter today to criticize Apple’s App Store fees in a tweet that sides with Epic in the ongoing Epic v. Apple dispute.

“Epic is right,” wrote Musk, before going on to call Apple’s ‌App Store‌ fees a “de facto global tax on the Internet.”

Musk earlier this week made veiled comments about ‌App Store‌ fees, but today’s statement is a much more direct criticism.

During Tesla’s earnings call, Musk said that Tesla was planning to let other companies use its charger network because Tesla does not want to “create a walled garden” and use that to “bludgeon” competitors. Musk said that this is a tactic used by “some companies,” and then he fake coughed and said “Apple.”

MacDailyNews Take: In May, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney admitted under oath that Apple’s App Store cut is similar to stores in gaming consoles.

Are console app stores a “de facto global tax” on video games? Or do they actually serve other purposes (storage, distribution, curation, discovery, etc., etc., etc.)?

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