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Mark Zuckerberg has been busy recently, as Meta Platforms (META) has announced several significant changes. Last week, however, he found time to sit down with Joe Rogan to share his take on many things as his industry nears a pivotal turning point.
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Facebook has recently faced criticism for ending fact-checking on the platform and replacing it with a system similar to X’s Community Notes. However, while Zuckerberg discussed the state of social media and what he sees as necessary for the industry, he didn’t focus too much on that; instead, he took the opportunity to issue some blunt words for one of his rivals.
Zuckerberg has a long history of criticizing this company. In 2020, he accused them of blocking innovation and competition, attempting to frame their actions as harmful to customers. Now, he seems intent on taking these attacks even further.
Zuckerberg doesn’t hold back while calling out rival
During his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg identified some of his problems with one of his Magnificent 7 rivals. The Meta CEO has criticized other companies in the space before, but in this case, he didn’t hold back and issued some blunt words for Apple (AAPL) .
As noted, this is by no means the first time that Zuckerberg has taken shots at Apple. In 2020, he accused the tech leader of having a "stranglehold" over the apps that iPhone users can download, alleging that the company can charge “monopoly rents” as a result.
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This time, however, he seems to have new issues with Apple. Throughout the hour-long podcast, Zuckerberg stated that as he sees it, Apple hasn’t invented anything important since former CEO Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone.
He went on to lay out what he sees as a blatant lack of progress from Apple on both the innovation and business fronts, stating:
“I think, year over year, I’m not even sure they’re selling more iPhones at this point. I think like the sales might actually be declining. Part of it is that each generation doesn’t actually get that much better. So people are just taking longer to upgrade than they would before.”
Zuckerberg added that he thinks Apple’s iPhone sales have “generally been flat to declining,” though he did not provide any evidence to support this claim. He also questioned how Apple has continued to make money despite its issues, accusing the company of “squeezing people and having this 30 percent tax on developers.”