“Apple isn’t playing fair”: How Nothing CEO Carl Pei reacts to the Apple Tax

Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus and founder and CEO of Nothing, has expressed his admiration for certain Apple products and practices in the recent past – he said that he respects Apple for constantly refining the iPhone. Just a few weeks ago, he said that Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro was not overhyped, but, on the contrary, the spatial computer was actually “underhyped”. Also, he said that he’ll review the Apple Vision Pro “when things calm down and I can be more objective” in an X/Twitter post.

Not being a smartwatch fan, though, he’s not an admirer of the Apple Watch.

Now, Carl Pei reposted a satirical video from the Morning Brew X/Twitter account that depicts one of the most universally criticized aspects of the Cupertino giant’s deeds: the infamous Apple Tax.

In the video, a man and a woman pretend they’re kids, and they play a game:

“Let’s play a game, I’ll be the store owner”, says the girl in the video – to which, her counterpart in the role of an app developer says: “Okay, I have an app to sell in your store”.

“Oh, they’re so cute”, say the actresses in the roles of EU and US regulators that are watching the game unfold.

After the “Every time you sell something, I get 30% of what you made” line by “Apple”, the boy says: “That’s not fair. I’m selling in a different store”. Then, there’s the punchline by “Apple”: “There are no different stores!”

After that, the EU regulator tries to make Apple offer something different from the 30% tax. Apple’s solution is a 17% tax, but a fee of $0.50 for every download over a million downloads per year.

Here’s the ending:

“Your app had 10 million downloads, so you owe me $400,000 because of the 50 cents fee”

“What!? My app is free, I didn’t make any money off those downloads!”

After that, the EU/US regulators talk to each other, stating that “She’s not playing fair”, “She never listens” and, ultimately, “She’s a monster”.