Apple’s Battle, Portnoy’s Complaint, a WaPo Update

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Happy Monday. I’m Eriq Gardner.

Welcome back to The Rainmaker! Today, a closer look at the latest twist in Apple vs. Epic Games, the knock-down-drag-out antitrust fight that could define the next couple decades for technology. That, plus merger review news, autonomous driving accidents, Elon Musk, Leslie Moonves, Carlos Watson, and much, much more.

But first…

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The Apple-Epic Grudge Match, Round Two

A multi-billion dollar suit over Apple’s “internet tax” could affect everything from the survival of Elon Musk’s Twitter to the geopolitics behind TikTok.

ERIQ GARDNER

Everyone’s talking about Elon Musk’s plan to charge Twitter users $8 per month for those coveted blue check-mark badges, but there’s a crucial detail that always seems to get left out of the discussion: the 30 percent fee that will end up in Apple’s pocket. That’s because Apple insists that developers, like Twitter, use its payment system for any transactions that go through its app store—a global “tax on the Internet,” as Elon once put it, that amounts to tens of billions of dollars in fees every year. Last Monday, Apple updated its rules to take a cut of ad campaigns that are managed through its platform, too, in yet another strike against Meta. There’s no reason to think Elon’s blue check business won’t have to pay the toll.

Well, perhaps one reason. Next Monday, at the James R. Browning Courthouse in San Francisco...

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