Elon Musk floats ‘alternative phone’ if Apple, Google app stores remove Twitter

Twitter Chief Elon Musk says he’d consider making an “alternative phone” in the event that Twitter is removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Musk made the comments on Friday night in response to conservative commentator Liz Wheeler, who tweeted, “If Apple & Google boot Twitter from their app stores, @elonmusk should produce his own smartphone. Half the country would happily ditch the biased, snooping iPhone & Android. The man builds rockets to Mars, a silly little smartphone should be easy, right?” 

“I certainly hope it does not come to that,” Musk replied, “but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone.”

Musk’s comments come after Phil Schiller, an Apple fellow who’s responsible for leading the App Store, deleted his Twitter account.

Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter, said in a New York Times op-ed that the social media giant risks being expelled from Apple and Google’s app stores if they fail to adhere to guidelines.

“Failure to adhere to Apple’s and Google’s guidelines would be catastrophic, risking Twitter’s expulsion from their app stores and making it more difficult for billions of potential users to get Twitter’s services. This gives Apple and Google enormous power to shape the decisions Twitter makes,” Roth said.

Roth said that as he left Twitter, “the calls from the app review teams had already begun.”

Musk tweeted a poll on Wednesday, asking Twitter users if the company should “offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?”

72% of respondents voted yes, and Musk then tweeted that “Amnesty begins next week.”