WASHINGTON: Elon Musk has accused Apple Inc of threatening to block Twitter from its app store without saying why, in a series of tweets on Monday, that also said the iPhone maker had stopped advertising on the social media platform.

The billionaire CEO of Twitter and Tesla said Apple was pressuring Twitter over content moderation demands.

He later tagged Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s Twitter account in another tweet, asking “what’s going on here?” Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The action, unconfirmed by Apple, wo­uld not be unusual as the company has routinely enforced its rules and previously removed apps for similar reasons in the past.

In the first quarter of 2022, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, spending $48 million and accounting for more than 4% of total revenue for the period, the Washington Post reported, citing an internal Twitter document.

Separately, the social media platform has also rolled back a policy that was aimed at tackling misinformation related to Covid-19, lending itself to the risk of a potential surge in false claims.

“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” according to an update on its blog page.

The turmoil in Twitter has also attracted the attention of the White House, which said on Monday that it was monitoring the social media platform for misinformation.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2022