Facebook meets Apple in Clash of the Tech Titans – “We must inflict pain”



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Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has for years regretted that Apple Inc. and its leader, Tim Cook, have too much influence over the activities of the social media giant. In 2018, his anger boiled over.

Facebook has been embroiled in a controversy over its data collection practices. Mr Cook piled up in a nationwide TV interview, saying his own business would never have found itself in such a traffic jam. Mr Zuckerberg countered that Mr Cook’s comments were “extremely offhand” and “not at all in accordance with the truth”.

In private, Mr. Zuckerberg was even tougher. “We have to inflict pain,” he told his team, for treating the company so badly, according to people familiar with the exchange.

It wasn’t the first time – nor the last – that Mr. Cook’s comments and actions left Mr. Zuckerberg bubbling over and, at times, plotting to return to Apple. The escalation of grievances erupted late last month in a rare public tit-for-tat between the two tech giants that laid bare the simmering animosity between their executives, who traded blows over confidentiality , application tracking tools and, ultimately, their dueling visions on the future of the Internet.

Apple has positioned itself as the protector of digital privacy, championing a greater good, while often criticizing Facebook’s business model, without naming the company. All of this is irritating on Facebook, which views Apple as overstepping in a way that threatens Facebook’s existence, and hypocritical, including doing extensive business, in China, where privacy is scarce. A 2017 attempt to resolve the tensions through a face-to-face meeting between the two CEOs resulted in a tense standoff.

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