Twitter's former trust & safety chief says 'Twitter needs Apple a lot more than Apple needs Twitter'

• A former Twitter executive weighed in on Elon Musk's brewing conflict with Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook.
• Elon Musk had said Apple threatened to remove Twitter from its App Store "but won't tell us why."

Twitter's former head of trust & safety, Yoel Roth, weighed in on Elon Musk's brewing conflict with Apple.

"I think Twitter needs Apple a lot more than Apple needs Twitter," Roth said at the Knight Foundation's "Informed" conference on Tuesday.

Musk, who took over ownership of Twitter last month, hasn't shown hesitation in rocking the boat with Apple, though.

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Musk declared war on the tech giant earlier this week, accusing it of censorship and of being a monopoly in a series of tweets. He alleged that Apple had slowed advertising spending on Twitter and questioned whether the company and its CEO, Tim Cook, "hate free speech in America."

Musk also said that Apple had threatened Twitter's place in its App Store "but won't tell us why."

Roth said that the chances that Twitter is imminently removed from Apple's App Store are likely slim.

"I think Apple is a very savvy company; they're very strategic. I think, ultimately, their primary focus is building products that their customers love," he said. "It would require something really dramatic to happen for Apple to remove Twitter from the App Store. I think both sides don't want that to happen."

However, Roth did ech some of the same sentiments that Musk expressed on Twitter this week. "We should be really worried about App Store governance," he said.