 Let's just jump in right so before we get to the Twitter Apple Wars that are starting let's let's a quick I just saw a quick story about Iran that I want to update you you know we always try to do that so last week I think it was late last week the niece of Supreme leader Khamenei the niece of Supreme Leader Khamenei in Iran basically went on video criticizing the regime supporting the protests supporting the young girls and and and condemning Khamenei and condemning his regime you know supposedly yesterday she was arrested she was detained and and in spite of you know the fact that she is a part of the family if you will she's the niece of the supreme leader she is now in jail they've already the Iranians have already arrested 1500 people they have death sentences on 21 of them I don't think they've they've executed anybody yet I think there's a some kind of a appeal process and but it is 1500 not 15,000 1500 people have been arrested and you know we'll see if you know how this all evolves so that is kind of the latest from the Islamic Republic of Iran I think the United States is playing Iran today I hope they thrash him and yes hopefully the demonstrations will continue quick on China no real new update there's still a lot of talk about the unprecedented nature of the demonstrations still a lot of talk I think on Chinese social media Chinese police are stopping people in the street and Chinese Chinese police are stopping people in the street they're checking cell phones they're also from what I can tell in in areas where demonstrations on Sunday but from what I can tell I saw a news story that said that they're actually now hunting down the people who are at the demonstration so they are actually going to their homes and I don't know if they're arresting them detaining them or what they're doing or just harassing them or just searching them but but there is a concerted effort by the regime in China to clamp down on this and and and not allow this to develop and not allow this to get bigger so all I can say is my my my my mind my heart is with the Chinese and and and I hope I hope they withstand whatever it is that is going to be inflicted inflicted on them all right let's see okay so let's jump into Twitter and Apple just a bewildering story in my view just you know a little a little crazy so you know Twitter's struggling it's losing money every day Elon Musk has already talked about the possibility of bankruptcy it's it still does not have any kind of standard for objective moderation of the platform it hasn't announced anything really with regard to that it is it is losing advertisers it is so it is losing revenue the pay for the check mark which Elon Musk started has not really done much or gone anywhere you know we'll see he says he's gonna relaunch it on Friday they suspended it for a while they'll relaunch it Friday maybe that'll generate significant revenue it's still to be determined you know the obviously he's trying to switch the model from advertising to to some kind of subscription model we'll see if that works in other words and Musk is trying to make the platform better introducing features make it more robust make it more competitive bring real innovation to Twitter so he's trying to do a lot of good things and trying to do a lot of significant things and he's also trying to bring I think some more visibility some more transparency some more objectivity to the moderation but he hasn't done that yet so far as I've said in the past moderation basically is at Elon Musk's whim or at the whim of polls that he takes so this is where we are and then Elon yesterday decides that he doesn't have a big enough challenge he doesn't have a big enough you know problem in his hands he decided to basically go on a PR war against Apple the largest company in the world the largest by market cap the largest company a company that has a billion people using its platform on which many of those people could use Twitter or not if Apple decided not um and and to gauge in a war now now it could be that he thinks he would beat Apple that's that's quite possible but hmm one has to wonder and also one has to wonder about the timing of this again he's got a lot of his hands he's tweeting up a storm he doesn't stop he's constantly on Twitter reminds me of a president who spend more time on Twitter than governing the company the country it is this really the best way to run Twitter to to get Twitter on the right track to get Twitter to where it needs to be which we all want it to be hugely successful so first um Elon Musk complained about the fact that um you know he started about complaining of the fact that uh um you know that Apple is is almost completely stopped advertising on Twitter now this is not just two over Apple a significant amount two-thirds I think of the advertising on Twitter have withdrawn kind of waiting to see what Musk does with it and I think the extent to which they've withdrawn and to the extent to which they are wait and hold is to large extent Musk's fault he hasn't really conveyed in clear objective terms what the policy is going to be so he started by complaining that uh uh Apple in Apple I think Apple's total spending on Twitter was I don't know 30 million dollars this year or something like that which is not a huge amount of money in the big scheme of things so again why why go after Apple it's it's not exactly the biggest uh uh advertiser on Apple but you know obviously obviously it is an advertiser and they were true then he started complaining about the fact that Apple supposedly he claims is withholding has threatened to withhold Twitter from its app store and they won't tell him why supposedly now who knows if that is uh if that is true or not uh what that exactly means or not but Apple of course is a private company has every right to decide what's on its platform and what is not right and uh the nice thing about Apple is they're staying quiet they're not saying anything this is all coming from Musk who's behaving I think like a little child who's not getting is not getting his favorite toy and is bitching and complaining instead of actually putting his head down and actually doing the work uh necessary now it is true that if Apple blocked Twitter from its app store that would be pretty horrific for Twitter that is a lot of users uh that could potentially you know destroy Twitter uh so this is a big deal and because it's a big deal and this is business one wonders whether the right approach is to antagonize a major call them supplier vendor I don't know exactly how you would call them um customer antagonize them what is the point exactly public pressure on Apple really Apple's not exactly known as a company the response to public pressure Musk needs Apple more than Apple needs Musk now it turns out that there is a history here that uh Musk has been complaining about Apple now for years uh Musk has been complaining about everything Apple has done from from the fact supposedly since uh Scott the CEO of Apple um sorry Cook Tim Cook the CEO of Apple kind of didn't take a meeting with Musk when Musk was trying to get Apple to invest in Tesla and uh Apple refused to invest in Tesla and didn't even take a meeting uh or at least Tim Cook didn't attend the meeting when Musk was trying to raise money from Apple then uh the fact that Apple throughout the last I think five years or so has been poaching engineers has been hiring engineers away from uh Tesla has made uh Musk unhappy uh although he claims that they only get the poor engineers they don't get the really good engineers they get the engineers they can't cut in um Tesla and if that's the case why is he upset right uh it's uh it's it's it's it's helpful to him it cleans out the they're not so good people um so Musk needs Apple as an advertiser Musk needs Apple in order to appear on its platform uh Twitter is bleeding uh of the 5.1 million dollars of revenue uh in uh in 2021 a 4.5 came from advertising so they need advertisers there's there an ornament he's trying to diversify the model but you don't get to these numbers by selling checkmarks it's not going to replace the advertising why are you antagonizing your largest uh customer now you could argue well because Apple is threatening Apple is doing all this stuff okay but then uh you know so so Musk is just letting the world know that Apple is behaving in this way Apple I assume is trying to do what it sees is it's in its best business practices um at the same time but then Musk launches a whole new attack on Apple uh and um you know uh where is this uh I've got us here yeah Musk then he shifted the attack on Apple and he talked about ooh that Apple has a secret 30 tax on everything you buy through their app still well first of all it's not a tax secondly it's not secret we all know that uh every app every app out there that uses the app to charge you money in the first year of the use of that app Apple gets 30 percent of every revenue they any revenue they accumulate they charge you uh after the first year it drops to 15 percent this is an agreement a contract that Apple signs with every Apple store vendor if you don't want to sign the agreement fine you don't appear on the Apple Apple store uh it's not a secret deal it's so unsecret that Apple has been sued about this uh by or is it the game is a game uh game company that sued Apple over this and indeed uh you know it's gone to the courts as sued on antitrust ground of course right which Musk is now supporting right that they should be they should be uh attacked or prevented for doing this on antitrust ground so Musk is using using antitrust in order to go after his enemy Apple uh and uh Fourth Night thank you Fourth Night is the game I can't remember what's the name of the company that makes Fourth Night uh anyway uh you know so Apple charges 30 percent it's again oh Epic Epic is the name of the game company Epic so um Epic filed the suit Epic lost mostly most of the suit where they lost it's now at appeal the Biden administration just this appointment has joined Epic in the appeal supporting Epic going after Apple for antitrust reasons so Apple's under attack uh the courts are going to decide whether it gets sustained this 30 percent deal or not Apple has exclusivity if you will quote monopoly power over the idea that um all apps on the app the the iPhone have to be downloaded through the app store although that's not true completely true because I know I downloaded some stuff off of websites but um you know you can't you can't have third-party app stores that sell you Apple apps and Epic is challenging that on antitrust ground the justice department is challenging that on antitrust ground we'll see how the courts rule I think it's in front of the eighth circuit but we know or I am at least as I think most of you know I'm against antitrust on principle I denounce antitrust on principle I condemn anybody who uses antitrust to improve their business and in that sense I condemn Epic I condemn Twitter I can oh Elon Musk in this case can everybody who's trying to use and I condemn the people who went after Microsoft when they did that includes Mark Adresin but that's exactly what Elon Musk is doing he's citing with the um I think the bad guys here um anyway it's sad to see it's sad to see as you know I kind of have gone through not thinking much of Elon Musk thinking very highly of an Elon Musk and now thinking a lot less of a Elon Musk uh and and this adventure Twitter is not making him look good I think it's making him look phantic like a child he's whiny he's emotionalist um and uh you know it's sad to watch it's sad to watch he's my opinion on Elon Musk he went through roller coaster partially because he is a roller coaster I think what happens even when he says good things it's kind of emotionally driven he doesn't have a cohesive philosophy to guide him through there's a lot of pragmatism there sadly so in certain areas he can plan long term it can really think in terms of long term Twitter has completely bamboozled him partially because he's clearly overpaid significantly overpaid and uh he can't get out of it and we'll see we'll see uh we'll see what else happens um Apple here Apple is not banning him for bringing Donald Trump and Kanye Bask I mean Apple has Paulo on it and Paula I think is now owned by Kanye so um it's um I don't think it's limited to that Apple is probably just saying be careful because if you're if if the place becomes if Twitter becomes a zoo in which people are attacking one another and and and bad things are happening on it we might withdraw the app because we have uh standards and you know you can go to the you can go to the app store and you can see what their standards are there's of course they're not completely objective either and and they have done some questionable things but it's a business they can do what they want they can do what they want thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show if you'd like to support the show we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me you get value from listening you get value from watching show your appreciation you can do that by going to Iran book show dot com slash support by going to patreon subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution uh on any one of those uh any one of those channels also if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe press that little bell button right down there on youtube so that you get an announcement when we go live and for you those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show thank you i very much appreciate it