With Literally No Words, Tim Cook’s Response to Elon Musk’s Angry Tweets Is a Master Class in How to Handle Your Critics

One of the more interesting things that happened in the midst of Apple’s WWDC last week is that Elon Musk got really upset about the company’s partnership with OpenAI. As you might remember, Apple said that it would integrate ChatGPT into a variety of experiences in iOS, macOS, and iPadOS, including the ability to send queries directly from Siri interactions. 

In a tweet, Musk threatened Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, that he would ban all Apple devices from all of his companies. “Don’t want it,” Musk wrote. “Either stop this creepy spyware or all Apple devices will be banned from the premises of my companies.”

Of course, it’s not clear that Musk actually understood what was happening. He previously tweeted, “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.”

I know Musk is busy, but it seems as though he didn’t have time to watch Apple’s keynote as the company made it pretty clear that it isn’t integrating ChatGPT at “the OS level,” but rather offering it as an additional experience on top of the Apple Intelligence built on its own models.

The tweet is also weird because surely Musk knows that Microsoft just spent a lot of time talking about its Copilot+ PCs, which are very much powered by ChatGPT integrated into Windows. Is he planning to ban all Windows devices as well? I may have missed that tweet. 

Setting aside the confusion, there’s actually a really important lesson here about how to handle trolls. That’s because the most interesting thing isn’t Musk’s misguided response to the Apple CEO’s tweet. It’s the fact that Cook hasn’t responded at all. At least, not publicly. 

Maybe Cook has reached out to Musk directly and the rest of us will never know. Maybe he called him up to explain how Apple Intelligence works, and how the ChatGPT integration is completely different (and, for that matter, optional). 

You might remember a few years ago when Musk last got in a dust-up with Apple over the latter company’s 30 percent commission. This was when Musk seemed to first discover that if you want to sell subscriptions inside an app on the iPhone–which he very much wants to do with X–Apple is going to take its cut of in-app purchases. 

In that case, Cook didn’t respond publicly either. Instead, he invited Musk to take a walk at Apple Park. As someone who has been to Apple Park, I have to say that’s quite the power move by Apple’s CEO. It’s one of the more intimidating environments to show up for a walk with someone on the other side of an argument. Everything about it is massive in scale. 

In this case, it seems less likely that Cook would invite Musk back any time soon,. After all, it’s not as though Apple is going to make any kind of change, and Musk’s criticism is misinformed, at best. At worst, he’s just rolling Apple in an effort to take a shot at OpenAI. Either way, there’s not much room for nuance when dealing with someone trying to score cheap points.

That is, after all, what is happening here. There’s no actual argument about whether Apple is integrating ChatGPT into the OS, as Musk suggests. Musk is just lobbing grenades at Apple because it has a beef with OpenAI, the company Musk co-founded before leaving to start his own rival, xAI. Musk even sued OpenAI, though he withdrew that lawsuit last week because, well, there was no contract involved, so there wasn’t much to sue about.

Cook’s response is pretty much what you’d expect from Apple’s CEO, who never appears to get flustered by anything. There’s nothing to gain from shooting back on social media, especially if you’re dealing with someone who thrives on exactly that sort of thing.

Cook is incredibly disciplined and better at this than most. The lesson here, for all of us, is pretty clear: It’s okay to let this sort of thing pass. You don’t have to respond when attacked online. You don’t have to get involved in a made-up battle on social media, especially with the guy who owns the social media platform. Instead, ignore the noise, focus on doing what you’re supposed to do, and let everything else take care of itself.