Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk said he would create his own smartphone if Apple and Google remove the Twitter app from their app stores due to potential rules violations related to distribution of content.
Podcaster Liz Wheeler first proposed the idea of Musk building his own smartphone via Twitter and he responded saying that he would reluctantly move into the smartphone business if Twitter was removed from the app stores. However, Musk is likely more focused on revamping Twitter’s business model and platform than he is on developing a new smartphone.
Musk is making some controversial changes to the Twitter platform since he purchased the company for roughly $44 billion in late October. In early November Twitter laid off half of its workforce, including the teams that are responsible for content curation, communications and machine learning ethics. In addition, it also significantly reduced its product and engineering teams.
Musk, a billionaire businessman, who refers to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” also has reinstated numerous users banned from the site for promoting violence and hate speech, which prompted some to speculate that Twitter may be in danger of being removed from the app stores.
Although neither Apple nor Google have made any public statements regarding a potential removal of the Twitter app from their app stores, both companies have policies for their app store that permit the removal of apps if they contain sexually explicit material, bullying or other forms of harassment or hate speech. In addition, both app stores have temporarily banned other platforms, like Parler and Truth Social, when they violated app marketplace guidelines.
Of course, Musk isn’t the first to toss around the idea of developing an alternative operating system and smartphone. But developing a new smartphone isn’t a easy endeavor. Several large companies, like Microsoft with its Windows phone and Facebook with its HTC First, have attempted to enter the smartphone market and ended up abandoning their efforts.