Spotify CEO renews assault on Apple after Musk’s salvo

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek renewed his assault on Apple on Wednesday in a collection of tweets alleging the iPhone maker “provides itself each benefit whereas on the identical time stifling innovation and hurting customers”.

Ek tagged quite a lot of sympathetic enterprise leaders in his 21-tweet thread, together with Musk, Microsoft president Brad Smith, and Proton founder Andy Yen.

On Monday, the world’s richest individual Elon Musk criticized the payment Apple expenses software program builders – together with his Twitter enterprise – for in-app purchases, and posted a meme suggesting he was keen to “go to battle” quite than pay it.

Spotify has beforehand submitted antitrust complaints in opposition to Apple in varied international locations, alleging the 30% cost has compelled Spotify to “artificially inflate” its personal costs.

Apple didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday. It has beforehand mentioned the 30% lower it takes on purchases made in its App Retailer is used to guard customers in areas akin to fraud and privateness.

Tim Sweeney, the CEO of “Fortnite” maker Epic Video games, tweeted on Wednesday that combating Apple’s “monopoly” was “an American problem transcending occasion politics”.

“So how for much longer will we glance away from this risk to the way forward for the web? What number of extra customers will likely be denied alternative? There’s been numerous discuss. Speak is useful however we’d like motion,” Ek wrote.

Musk is predicted to speak with European Commissioner Thierry Breton through videocall on Wednesday afternoon, although the agenda was unknown. The pair beforehand met in Texas in Could, forward of Musk’s $44 billion buy of Twitter, the place they signaled broad settlement on EU tech regulation coverage.