Elon Musk sides with Epic Games, calls Apple’s App Store costs ‘de facto global tax on the Internet’

Elon Musk: Tech mogul Elon Musk has taken a side in the complete Apple versus Epic Games concern, and he has sided with… Epic. Last week, the tech mogul on Twitter flatly denied ever obtaining spoken to Apple CEO Tim Cook, although he was responding to a story that alleged that Musk was demanding that he take more than as the CEO of the iPhone maker as portion of an acquisition give. Not only did he deny that allegation, he also cleared any doubts concerning it, and how. In a tweet on the ongoing Epic Games vs Apple feud, Musk spoke out against Apple’s App Store policy, claiming that “Epic is right”.

“Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet,” the tech mogul wrote.

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At the moment, Apple and Epic Games are in a legal battle following Fortnite-developer Epic Games sued the iPhone maker for getting allegedly unfair and anti-competitive by requiring developers to use only the App Store payment gateway for any in-app purchases of digital assets, and then charging a 30% commission on it. Epic Games had attempted to flout this rule and incorporated its personal third-party payment gateway in its well-known game Fortnite, shortly following which, Apple removed the game from App Store for policy violation.

Epic Games then filed an antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant, and in the ongoing legal battle, Apple stated that it did not enable third-party app downloads mainly because that could compromise the security of iPhone for the customers.

Merely 15 minutes following Musk place out his tweet supporting Epic, Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted out a post targeting Apple, possibly in an try to leverage the spotlight from Musk’s millions of followers. Sweeney wrote, in somewhat of an exaggerated jibe, “The Apple Tax is far more pernicious than many realise. “It only applies to digital goods accessible on iOS,” they say — but in the future all physical goods will have a digital presence, and Apple will tax and gatekeep world commerce. Apple have to be stopped.”

Notably, Google also has a equivalent policy and it also removed Fortnite, following in Apple’s footsteps. This led to Epic Games also suing Google, but the case is moving at a slower pace than the Apple one, in which Epic Games and Apple went head-to-head for the duration of hearings in May. The verdict in the case is nonetheless awaited.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz