It’s been two years since Twitter became the property of Elon Musk. During all this time at the head of the famous X, the magnate of South African origin left us several anecdotes. Some of them are recounted in his authorized biographywritten by Walter Isaacson, who is also the author of the biography of Steve Jobs.
However, one of the moments that unites Musk and Apple in this book is not linked to its author, but to How Elon Musk Used All AirTag Stock from an Apple Store. The reason? Follow Twitter servers. A fact that, as you can already imagine, did not please the CEOs of Tesla, Starlink and SpaceX.
Hundreds of AirTags that were of no use to Musk in his goal
It is the analyst Steve Moser who, precisely, via X (Twitter) realized the curiosity of Elon Musk and the Apple AirTag. As Moser notes, Elon Musk’s biography includes purchasing the entire AirTag inventory of an Apple Store.
The reason was none other than put them on Twitter servers when you move from Sacramento to Oregon. As you can imagine, social media servers are essential to its operation and having encountered problems during the move can lead to serious problems.
That’s why Musk must have thought it was a good idea to use Apple trackers to locate them at any time. However, ignored how an AirTag works. There were two big drawbacks, one above the other.
- The AirTag is not a GPS locator. Not at least continuously, which experience has shown us. This accessory is actually a beacon that broadcasts its location approximately every 15 minutes and whenever you have another Apple product nearby to broadcast the information to the servers. For example, an iPhone. However, this is not useful for viewing a location in real time.
- “Only” 16 AirTags can be connected to an iPhone, which is not small in general, but that’s what Musk meant. We don’t know the exact number of AirTags he purchased, but if he sold out of a store’s stock, we’re guessing there were hundreds. Well, out of all of them, you can only link 16 to the “Search” app on your iPhone.
That being said, it is likely that Musk was indifferent to the first limitation, even if the second must have surprised him badly. We don’t know how they’ll eventually fix the problem and if 16 AirTags would be enough. The thing is, to connect them all, you would need multiple iPhones.
Another factor to consider is economic investment. Would be hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars spent in vain on AirTags. Small change for a billionaire like Musk, yes, but if there’s one thing we’re clear about, it’s that millionaires don’t become millionaires by throwing money away, so that’s not insignificant either .
It’s like losing 20 dollars now: it won’t make us poorer, but it will certainly make us at least a little angry. Even more so if they end up with someone with whom we have certain quarrels, as is the case with Elon Musk and Apple.
Cover image | Apple | s7akti on Pexels
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