Governor Ron DeSantis says Apple should be hauled in front of Congress if it bans Twitter from the App Store

Elon Musk in front of the Twitter logo
Elon Musk in front of the Twitter logo (Image credit: Future)

Apple could find itself in front of Congress if it bans Twitter from the App Store.

In a speech from earlier today, Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis touched on Elon Musk's feud with Apple, saying that, if the company went through on any ban of Twitter from the App Store, that should warrant a response from the United States Congress.

In addition to talking about the potential Twitter ban, DeSantis also claimed that, by reinstating all of the accounts that have been banned by the company over the years, Elon Musk was allowing free speech and "accurate information about COVID" to return to the platform.

You can watch that part of his speech below:

Musk's latest feud is with Apple

Earlier this week, Elon Musk, the new owner and CEO of Twitter, launched a number of attacks against Apple and its App Store policies on the social media platform.

Musk claimed that Apple had threatened the company to pull the Twitter app from the App Store but did not tell them why. He also claimed that Apple was charging everyone a "secret" 30% tax on all of their purchases through the App Store, a claim that was quickly debunked by the company's own Community Notes feature.

While the 30% cut that is paid to Apple for sales through the App Store certainly isn't a secret, it seems to be at the core of Musk's battle with the company. If 30% of Twitter Blue subscriptions go to Apple, that's a large cut off the top for Twitter, and Musk is obviously not happy with that.

Twitter won't be the first company to go to war with Apple over its App Store rules and commission rates. Epic and Spotify have been publicly feuding with the company for years over its App Store fees and court battles are ongoing.

Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.