• I buy almost all my kids' clothing secondhand. 
• Buying and selling takes time and energy, but saving a significant amount of money is worth it.
• Here are my tips for having success on the kids' resale market.

Kids grow like weeds, and there's a short window of time for them to wear each clothing size.

I'm picky about what my girls wear, but I would not be able to afford the brands and styles that I wanted to dress them in if I bought their clothes brand new. I also don't feel great about buying brand-new when I know they'll wear each item for such a short amount of time.

Instead, I scour the internet and local consignment sales to find clothes secondhand and then resell them after they're done wearing them. It saves me money and is a more sustainable option as well.

Here are four tips for kids' consignment success.

I buy online and at consignment sales

Kidizen is the kids' equivalent of the popular consignment site Poshmark. I use it for buying as it's easy to filter by brand, size, and item quality, and shipping is fairly inexpensive.

There are also great local consignment sales where I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, many of which happen twice a year (in early fall and early spring). They're great for buying many items at once and for building out my kids' closet for the upcoming season. These sales are typically only a few days long, and on the last day, items are usually reduced even further for mega deals.

Chances are there are similar sales or consignment stores specifically for kids in your area. If you're not familiar with any, ask your local parenting group or do a quick Google search to find them.

Facebook is also a great place to buy kids' clothes. To make it easier to find what you want, look for specific Buy/Sell/Trade (BST) groups for brands you love, like the popular Mini Boden & Hanna Andersson BST group (which has over 60,000 members!). You can also search the Facebook Marketplace by category or brand.

Here's how I sell secondhand clothing to make the most money

As a seller, you'll make different profit margins based on where you sell your clothes.

Kidizen takes 12% (plus an additional flat $.50 fee) of each sale, so I typically start by listing things on Facebook Marketplace or specialty BST groups because there are no fees when you make a sale. You'll also have to ship your item if you use Kidizen, but you can choose whether you pay the shipping fee or pass the fee along to the buyer. If you're using Facebook, you have the option of local buyers only or whether you want to ship.

If an item isn't selling on Facebook after a couple of weeks, I'll list it on Kidizen to reach a wider audience. Then, my last resort is selling through the local seasonal consignment sales because they can take up to 50% of the profit for each sale. They're a great way to sell a lot of things quickly, though, so I'll take whatever hasn't sold through other methods to these and then donate whatever is leftover at the end of the sale.

Certain brands have a higher resale value

The kid resale market is similar to the adult resale market. Higher-end brands have a better chance at reselling, and you're going to get more of your purchase price back when you resell them. Keep this in mind when you're buying (new or secondhand), as the ability to resell effectively brings your purchase price down since you're making back some of what you spent.

Mass-market brands like Old Navy and Carters are tougher to resell, and you'll likely only be able to recoup a small percentage of what you originally paid. Higher-end brands like Hanna Andersson, Mini Boden, and The Beaufort Bonnet Company have high resale values and often pass through several rounds of ownership.

When I buy an item from one of these brands secondhand, I can usually resell it for 70-80% of what I paid. Knowing this, it makes more sense to pay a bit extra for the higher-end brands.

It takes work and patience to buy and sell secondhand kids' clothing

Buying and selling kids' clothes is a marathon, not a sprint. Over time, I've made and saved hundreds of dollars selling my girls' clothes. It feels good to contribute to the circular economy by giving gently used clothes a new life, but it does take a lot of work.

Creating a listing to sell an item takes work. You'll need to take multiple pictures and write a description, and you might need to list the item in multiple places to make a sale. Keeping yourself organized is also important. You need space in your house to keep mailers and packing supplies to ship things and space to store the clothes you want to sell.

If you aren't making many sales, you may need to reconsider what brands you're listing, how you're pricing, or the quality of your photos. Have patience, but know that your time also has a cost, and over time, if you aren't selling, it may not be worth it.

On the buying side, you may not find things you love every time you try to shop. There is no way to tell what inventory might be available in the size and condition that you are looking for. Browse Kidizen and your favorite BST Facebook groups for a few minutes whenever you have time. If you find something you love, act quickly, as once the item is gone, there is no backup.

Kids' clothing is expensive, and they don't wear anything for long. It takes time and effort, but buying secondhand and reselling is a way to drastically reduce your spending.

• John Oliver bought the contents of a defunct Red Lobster at auction, beating out a local bakery.
• Oliver offered to buy the bakery new equipment if it created cakes in his likeness.
• The 'cake bears' are selling out rapidly, with all proceeds going to a local food pantry.

A small, family-owned bakery in the Hudson Valley is getting thousands of dollars worth of new kitchen equipment following a good-humored feud with John Oliver.

On Sunday's episode of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," Oliver recounted how the viral back-and-forth stemmed from a stunt on his show where he purchased all of the kitchen equipment from a shuttered Red Lobster in Kingston, NY, at auction.

Oliver recreated his own Red Lobster to exclusively manufacture the chain's hallowed cheddar biscuits.

But according to local outlet News 12, Oliver had beaten out another suitor.

Eric Deising, owner of 59-year-old Deising's Bakery in Kingston, had left a sign on the defunct Red Lobster inquiring about a flat-top oven and convection oven, News 12 reported.

"John — he's just beating me all over the place," Deising told the outlet of missing out on the equipment.

'Check out the donk on that cake bear'

Oliver responded to the report on his show Sunday. "Last Week" had already donated all of the Red Lobster equipment, he said, and they hadn't even purchased either item Deising requested to begin with.

But Oliver offered a challenge. If the bakery would make and sell bear-shaped cakes with Oliver's face on them, he said he'd gift Deising's new ovens.

"Respectfully, check out the donk on that cake bear," Oliver said of the confection, which Deising's had previously offered. "That cake's got cakes."

Deising's rose to the occasion — with an altruistic bent.

On Monday, the bakery began selling "cake bears" with Oliver's face affixed with edible paper, News 12 reports.

Peter Deising, another owner at the bakery, told Business Insider the items have been a smash hit, with approximately 100 selling every hour. They're priced at $8 apiece.

Deising's plans to donate 100% of the proceeds from the cake bears to People's Place, a local food pantry, Deising said.

The cake bears are only available through Sunday in-store, despite requests to ship from across the globe, he added.

Deising told BI the kitchen equipment — which he estimates is worth thousands of dollars — is set to be delivered on Thursday.

A rep for "Last Week Tonight" did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Small drones packed with explosives have proven to be a major threat to armored vehicles in Ukraine.
• Both sides of the conflict have built cages around their tanks to give them added protection.
• One Ukrainian operation is making protective screens for Kyiv's arsenal of US-made M1 Abrams tanks.

American-made M1 Abrams tanks were built to fight the Russians, but on the battlefield in Ukraine, they are fighting an unfamiliar kind of war as they go up against Moscow's arsenal of deadly exploding drones — something the Soviets never had and something the Abrams hasn't seen in its other wars.

There are concerns the heavy armor on an Abrams may not be enough on its own to protect its crew from this dangerous and evolving threat. However, one Ukrainian company is building steel screens that can offer the tanks an extra layer of protection.

"I think the future of war is the war of drones," Oleksandr Myronenko, the operational director of the Metinvest Group, told Business Insider in a recent interview, so it's very important to protect armored vehicles against the rise of unmanned systems.

Metinvest is a steel and mining conglomerate that's headquartered in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. For more than a year and a half, the company has been making protective steel screens for Kyiv's aging T-64 and T-72 tanks.

Just a few weeks ago, this operation expanded to the Abrams tanks, US-made armor designed and developed during the Cold War to fight the Soviet tank threat.

Thirty-one US-provided M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks arrived in Ukraine last fall. By late-April, though, Kyiv had already lost five in combat, at least some to drones.

At the start of the conflict in Ukraine, as in past wars, tanks and other armored vehicles primarily had to worry about enemy threats like anti-tank missiles, artillery shells, and mines. But now, on both sides of the war, these vehicles also face small, cheap hobby-style drones packed with explosives that a remote operator can easily fly right into a target and detonate.

These things are ubiquitous in Ukraine, and the right hit could permanently damage or destroy a tank — and even kill its crew, trained personnel not easily replaced.

Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have sought to protect their vehicles by outfitting them with net-like cages as a last-ditch defense against inbound munitions, especially first-person view (FPV) drones that have taken the battlefield by storm.

This improvised armor, sometimes described as a "cope cage," vary in appearance and effectiveness. Some look jury-rigged and crudely built, while others are more hardened and structured. Their presence does not render a tank invincible, far from it actually, but they clearly add some extra protection that might keep the crew alive.

The increasing employment of cage armor underscores the significant role that drones have played in Ukraine and presents new considerations for modern militaries as they look into better ways to protect their forces from unmanned systems in future conflicts. There are lessons for the US and others.

Metinvest began making its protective steel screens for Ukrainian tanks as Russia began using different types of drones on the battlefield, leaving tanks needing added protection against these threats, Myronenko said.

When the Abrams eventually arrived, it ran into the same problem as the Soviet tanks, and the military asked Metinvest for help.

The Abrams tanks are notably larger than Ukraine's Soviet systems, so it can take up to a week to build a protective screen for the American armor and 12 hours to install. Each of the screens weighs hundreds of pounds and can cost up to $20,000 to make.

Though that figure is significantly more expensive than an FPV drone carrying a bomb, which might only be worth a fraction of that, it is much cheaper than losing a tank like the Abrams, which costs upwards of $10 million. That said, Metinvest says the screens are given to the military for free, and so far, the company has produced 25 screens total — seven of which have been for the Abrams.

Before the screens are permanently fitted on the tanks, a prototype is made, at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, and tested on the armor to ensure a good fit. Then, it either goes right into production, or improvements are made. In that case, it's sent back to the military for additional testing.

On the Abrams, the protective screen wraps around the top and sides of the turret, allowing it to move freely. Some of the other cages spotted during the war are more restrictive — like Russia's infamous "Turtle Tank" — and don't allow for such mobility.

"It helps save [the] tank from huge damages" and greatly increases the survivability of the crew, Myronenko said of the armor.

Ukraine's Soviet tanks have already seen their screens tested in battle. Sometimes they may take some damage but can still continue in combat, but other times, the damage is greater, forcing them to pull back. The jury is still out for the Abrams tanks, as they were only recently given the added protection. Myronenko said that his company is patiently waiting to see how they perform.

The screens are mainly designed to protect against drones, he said. If an unmanned system hits the screen, it will not necessarily damage the tank. However, artillery shells and larger-caliber weapons are way more threatening and may tear through this shielding.

The Abrams isn't the only American armored asset that Metinvest will work with. This month, this operation will begin making protective screens for the US-provided Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which has proven to be a workhorse for Ukrainian front-line forces.

Whether these add-on protective screens extend to other armored combat vehicles remains to be seen, but the ever-present threat of exploding drones is growing.

"Anti-drone steel screens help not only to protect expensive equipment from damage by the enemy, but also protect the lives of Ukrainian servicemen," Myronenko said in a late-May statement.

Once a practical way to transcribe, calligraphy has evolved into a fine art. As the practice we recognize today spread across East Asia, countries like China, Japan, and Korea developed their own methods of creating high-quality calligraphy tools. Top-of-the-line brushes can cost $1,000, and quality ink sticks can reach multiple thousands of dollars. Add in inkstones and paper, and the investment can set you back $8,000. And while dedicated master craftsmen worry about the future of traditional calligraphy tools, younger calligraphers swear by the quality of these handmade items. So why are calligraphers willing to spend so much just to write?

• Business Insider is compiling its fifth annual list of VCs funding startups in the creator economy.
• We want to hear from you about who the standout VCs are in 2024.
• Please submit your ideas through this form (or below) by June 18.

The creator economy is a relatively new investment category built around the rise of social media and the empowerment of individuals as content makers.

Like traditional media companies, creator startups often rely on Big Tech platforms like Google and Facebook to make money — a volatile position to hold. Throughout the past year, some startups have lost their way, cut costs, or shut down in full. Meanwhile, other startups are still raising capital and growing.

Creator upstarts often operate with fewer costs than older media brands, allowing them to test new business models with limited financial risk. New York media studio Fallen Media, for example, built a business around producing MTV-style shows for the TikTok consumer audience. It keeps production costs low, allowing it to test different shows quickly and determine if they'll perform without over-investing.

Creator startups that rely too heavily on influencers as the root of their business can struggle. But companies in this category that use creators to make money in a different industry, like e-commerce or consumer products, are often better positioned to succeed. A new wave of upstarts is building apps that focus on community-building rather than the influencer phenomenon, for example.

"I think of the creator phenomenon as a very kind of broad throughline across a lot of different verticals and sectors," Rex Woodbury, founder and managing partner at the VC firm Daybreak, told Business Insider in January. "The venture-scale generational companies are, yes, creator companies, but they're also typically fitting into another bucket."

BI is compiling our fifth annual list of venture-capital firms funding the creator economy. We want to hear from you on which VC firms are backing the companies that will shape the creator industry's growth in the coming months.

Please submit your ideas through this form (or below) by June 18:

• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says he raised his grandnephew, Mark Martin, "as a son" from the time Martin was 6.
• Revelations that billionaire Republican Harlan Crowe paid for Martin's education have fueled a scandal engulfing the Court.
• Martin now faces decades in prison and says Thomas has refused to speak with him for years.

The man who was raised by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, as their own son from ages 6 to 19 is in jail awaiting trial on drugs and weapons charges, Business Insider has learned.

Mark Martin, the grandson of Thomas' sister, Emma Mae Martin, lived with the Thomas family in Virginia from 1997 to 2010, during which time Clarence and Ginni Thomas were his legal guardians. He's a central figure in the furor over undisclosed gifts that Thomas received from a billionaire friend, Harlan Crow.

Now 32 years old, Martin told BI in an interview from the Jasper County Detention Center in South Carolina that Clarence and Ginni Thomas washed their hands of him years ago.

"I haven't really heard much from them in a long time," Martin said. "I tried to communicate with them a couple of times, but I've never gotten any response."

In a 2007 C-SPAN interview, Thomas told the host Brian Lamb that Martin, who was 16 at the time, was living with him and his wife and that they were "raising him as a son."

"For me, in so many ways, it's rewarding because it's brought me, again, full circle," Thomas told Lamb. "I was about the age my grandfather was when he took my brother and me. And Mark was about the age my brother and I were when he took us in."

The Thomases sent Martin to the elite military prep school Randolph-Macon Academy, as well as a residential therapeutic treatment center called Hidden Lake Academy, which frequently used camping trips and wilderness programs as therapeutic tools.

(Hidden Lake Academy became the subject of congressional hearings about facilities for troubled teens over claims they could mislead families and turn abusive.)

Crow, a conservative donor and longtime family friend of the Thomases, paid the tuition for both schools, ProPublica reported. None of the payments were recorded at the time as gifts on Thomas' financial disclosures. Crow is an alumnus of Randolph-Macon. This month, in financial disclosures, Thomas acknowledged two vacations Crow had funded in 2019, one to Bali and another to California.

"I guess they looked into Randolph-Macon Academy because Harlan Crow actually graduated from there, so I guess that was behind their decision to send me there — and then apparently he helped finance the HLA trip, too," Martin told BI, though he said he wasn't aware at the time that Crow had footed the bills.

While the total amount of tuition Crow paid on Martin's behalf remains unclear, fees for all four years at both schools would have exceeded $150,000, ProPublica reported.

When neither placement prevented Martin from acting out with minor drug use and other petty crimes, the Thomases cut him off, Martin told BI.

Last summer, according to court records reviewed by BI, Martin was arrested on charges of drug trafficking and weapons possession. A warrant reviewed by BI indicates that at the time of his arrest in June 2023, Martin's vehicle was stopped as part of a juvenile-sex-trafficking investigation. He has not been charged with any crimes related to sex trafficking.

In separate charges from 2021, Martin was accused of trafficking more than 400 grams of meth and heroin. Those charges are still pending, according to records reviewed by BI.

If convicted, Martin faces at least 25 years in prison as part of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws in South Carolina for certain types of drug offenses. He faces at least five additional years for three charges related to the unlawful carrying of a pistol.

Due to the nature of the charges against him, which are considered violent crimes in South Carolina, Martin is ineligible for bond, his lawyer told BI. Martin denies the charges against him but has not entered a plea in either case because of a court backlog that has delayed proceedings.

Thomas and Crow did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story.

While his own father was incarcerated, Martin remembers much of his childhood as the Thomases' ward as relatively privileged. Together, Martin said they traveled to more than 20 countries; he frequently spent summers wakeboarding or waterskiing and babysitting Crow's son when the elite families vacationed together.

That all stopped when Martin entered high school, he said, when the Thomases decided they "just didn't have time to deal with" him and sent him away to the boarding schools. From his freshman year of high school on, Martin said he rarely saw his Supreme Court-justice great–uncle or his wife, who Martin said had raised him "like another mother and father" since childhood.

Clarence Thomas was 7 when his mother sent him to be raised by his grandfather in 1955. Thomas lived with his grandfather Myers Anderson, whom Thomas called Daddy, until Anderson kicked him out of the house when Thomas dropped out of his freshman year at Conception Seminary College in 1968.

Comparing their experiences, Thomas told C-SPAN Martin was "more of a challenge than I was."

"But I think the thing that I'll be able to do is, I'll be able to always look my grandfather in the eye and say that I did for my great-nephew what my grandparents did for us — my brother and me," Thomas said.

Martin says he was eventually expelled from Randolph-Macon Academy for failing a drug test as a junior in high school. At that point, Martin told BI Clarence and Ginni Thomas shipped him back to Martin's mother's house in Georgia, where they'd taken him from a decade prior, and he'd rarely heard from them since.

"I actually don't know if they know that I'm locked up — I'm not sure they'd care too much," Martin told BI. "I've seen — I've probably seen them two times, maybe three times, over the last 14 years."

Representatives for Randolph-Macon Academy declined to comment for this story, and BI could not independently confirm Martin's claims regarding the reasoning for his expulsion.

Martin, now a father of four children himself, said he believed the Thomases were probably disappointed in the direction of his life. He understands why they would be. However, between his father's imprisonment and being taken in by a justice of the Supreme Court at a young age, Martin said he had to "grow up a lot faster" than a normal kid would have — and wished his great-aunt and -uncle saw that he could have used their continued support while he was struggling.

"I just wish they'd at least communicate with me — get to know my children," Martin said. "They raised me like another mother and father, so I wanted my children to know who raised me into the person that I became. I want them to be around for that, at least — to see my kids grow up."

• Hunter Biden has been convicted on three felony gun charges.
• Republicans seem divided on what to make of it.
• Some of them are celebrating it, while others say it's a ruse. Some even seem to be defending him.

Hunter Biden was convicted on Tuesday of three federal charges related to him purchasing a gun while using illegal drugs.

It's the first time that the child of a sitting US president has been convicted of a crime. And it comes less than two weeks after former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York.

One might expect Republicans to be unanimously cheering the decision — to the extent that it will affect the presidential election at all, it's likely to hurt President Joe Biden more than it helps.

Yet that's not how all Republicans are reacting.

That's because much of the party has argued in recent years that the Biden administration has targeted former President Donald Trump, and the conviction of the president's son complicates that idea.

"This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family," said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt following the verdict.

Also, some Republicans happen to like guns.

Here are the four different ways the GOP is responding to the conviction.

It's not enough

While Republicans who go with this line aren't criticizing the conviction, they argue that there's much more out there.

Congressional Republicans have long been investigating the Biden family, aiming to eventually impeach the president on charges of influencing-peddling related to his son's business dealings — though it appears increasingly unlikely.

Some Republicans are also pointing out that Hunter Biden initially had a plea deal with the federal government, only for it to fall apart.

It's a sham or a smoke screen

More than a few Republicans are arguing that the conviction is some sort of smoke screen or ruse — either to cover up for more grave crimes supposedly committed by the Biden family, or to create the appearance of impartial justice.

"Hunter Biden just became the Deep State's sacrificial lamb to show that Justice is 'balanced' while the other Biden crimes remain ignored," wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Similarly, Stephen Miller — a top Trump advisor on immigration-related matters — argued that the conviction constituted an "easy op for DJ to sell to a pliant media."

"This is all about protecting Joe Biden and only Joe Biden," Miller wrote.

It's justice served

Some Republicans, believe it or not, are indeed satisfied with the result.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said that Hunter Biden's actions had given "law-abiding, Second Amendment-loving gun owners a bad name," while praising the conviction as the right decision.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, a freshman House Freedom Caucus member from Oklahoma, also celebrated the verdict.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — a GOP Senate candidate who got in trouble with Trumpworld for urging people to respect the verdict in Trump's case — simply said "we must respect the legal process."

It's a travesty

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, an idiosyncratic libertarian, isn't a fan of the gun charges.

"There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm against current laws," said Massie.

And top Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida — without elaborating — said that the conviction is "kinda dumb."

• Jon Stewart is done with "hollow corporate pandering."
• He criticized corporate America, arguing companies exploit Pride Month for financial gain.
• Companies like Target and Bud Light have backed down from their pro-LGBTQ stances after facing criticism.

Jon Stewart wants corporations to stop their "hollow corporate pandering" and just admit that all they care about is their bottom line.

The comedian and late night host railed against corporate America on Monday night's "The Daily Show," arguing that corporations' Pride Month celebrations really just "financially exploit the decades-long struggle of gay people for acceptance and equality."

In a segment on the show, Stewart said big-name companies want to appear LGBTQ-friendly only as long as it makes them money, but when they receive backlash, they reverse course.

Target, for example, came under fire from conservative groups last summer over its Pride-themed merchandise that included "tuck-friendly" bathing suits for adults and t-shirts with the phrase "Trans people will always exist!"

In response to the backlash and threats lodged at employees, Target removed the merchandise from a number of stores across the country, which a spokesperson previously told BI was done to protect workers' "sense of safety and wellbeing."

Company shareholders even filed a lawsuit last year arguing that the company's diversity initiatives were detrimental to shareholder value.

And this year, Target slashed its Pride collection even more, reducing the number of items from more than 2,600 down to just a few dozen.

Target isn't the only company to backtrack after receiving negative feedback for promoting LGBTQ perspectives.

Conservatives boycotted Bud Light last summer after the beer maker partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a social media promotion. The boycott even fueled a drop in sales as right-wing beer drinkers around the country abandoned the "woke" product.

And Bud Light waffled in response. Mulvaney said Bud Light never reached out to her after the backlash, criticizing the company for not standing by her. Meanwhile, Bud Light sought to win some of its customers back by offering free beer promotions.

The US CEO of Bud Light's owner, Anheuser-Busch, also followed up with a statement outlining steps the company was taking to alleviate the fallout, acknowledging that conversations about the company had "moved away from beer," and telling fans "We hear you."

Jon Stewart said that these controversies are just a few examples in a "long line of hollow corporate pandering meant to convince you that not only are corporations people, they're good people, decent people who care about the systemic ills of this great nation."

"Let's stop pretending that a corporation can even be woke or un-woke, patriotic or unpatriotic," Stewart continued. "Because corporations have but one value: shareholder value."

• Elon Musk criticized Apple and its CEO years ago before appearing to patch things up during an Apple HQ visit with Tim Cook.
• On Monday, Musk slammed Apple for its OpenAI partnership and threatened to ban iPhones and MacBooks at his companies.
• Here's a history of the beef between the Tesla CEO and the tech giant.

The story of Musk's beef with Apple dates back several years.

The first signs of Musk's one-sided beef with Apple came in 2015 when he joked that Apple employed Tesla's rejects.

"They have hired people we've fired," Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt. "We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard'. If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding."

In the interview with the news outlet, the Tesla CEO shrugged off reports that Apple was looking into making its own electric car — which the company has since reportedly scrapped — and took a dig at some of Apple's latest products.

"Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch?" Musk said. "No, seriously: It's good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car."

But in the years since, Musk has continued to pick fights with Apple and its CEO Tim Cook. After a recent period that seemingly seemed peaceful, the Tesla CEO set things off again with social media posts on June 10 that slammed the company for partnering with OpenAI, the AI company Musk cofounded and had a falling out with. 

Here's a history of Musk's criticisms of Apple and its CEO.

In 2016, Musk reportedly tried to take CEO Tim Cook's job.

According to Tim Higgins' book "Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century,"  Tim Cook had suggested that Apple acquire Tesla in 2016. 

At the time, Musk reportedly said he wanted to be CEO and Cook allegedly agreed, until Musk clarified that he wanted to be CEO of Apple — not just Tesla.

According to the book, which cited a source who had heard Musk's retelling of the exchange, Cook said "Fuck you" before hanging up the phone on Musk.

Both Musk and Apple have denied the reports, saying the two CEOs have never spoken. 

"There was a point where I requested to meet with Cook to talk about Apple buying Tesla," Musk said on Twitter when the book came out last year. "There were no conditions of acquisition proposed whatsoever. He refused to meet. Tesla was worth about 6% of today's value."

Six years ago, Musk said Apple's devices don't "blow people's minds" like they used to.

In a 2018 interview with Recode's Kara Swisher, Musk said Apple's products have grown stale.

"There's not many products you can buy that really make you happier," he said. "I still think, obviously, that Apple makes great phones. … I still use an iPhone and everything. But Apple used to really bring out products that would blow people's minds, you know? And still make great products, but there's less of that."

Musk compared Apple to Tesla, saying Tesla planned to avoid Apple's pitfalls when it comes to consumer interest.

"I don't think people are necessarily running to the store for the iPhone 11," Musk said. "But I think with Tesla, we really want to make products that people just love, that are heart-stopping."

He doubled down his criticisms of Apple's technology in 2020.

In 2020, Musk criticized the iPhone's software while speaking at the Satellite 2020 conference.

"Technology does not automatically improve," Musk said. "People are used to the phone being better every year. I'm an iPhone user, but I think some of the recent software updates have been not great."

He continued to say that the software seemingly  "broke" his email system.

 

A key Apple executive deleted his Twitter account amid Musk's changes to Twitter.

Phil Schiller, the senior Apple executive who runs the company's App Store, deactivated his Twitter account in November 2022, shortly after Musk reinstated Donald Trump's account.

Schiller had hundreds of thousands of followers on the site and had formerly served as the company's head of marketing. His decision to delete his account spawned headlines and raised eyebrows across the industry.

Musk has slammed the tech company for its App Store fees.

"Did you know Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through the App Store?" Musk tweeted in November 2022.

It was one of many times the billionaire has criticized Apple for its App Store fees.

In 2021, he called the fees a "de facto global tax on the Internet," and in November 2022, he tagged the Department of Justice's antitrust division in a criticism of the fees.

Now that he owns X, formerly Twitter, Apple's fees could have an impact on Musk's business and his plans to generate revenue by charging users $8 per month for verification on the social media site. 

The tech company controls app distribution for the iPhone and iPad, and takes between 15% and 30% of most in-app purchases made on iOS apps. The company typically requires that developers use in-app payment systems, though it has slightly softened that requirement for certain apps like Netflix and Spotify.

 

Elon Musk seemingly declared "war" on Apple in a since-deleted tweet in 2022.

The billionaire accused Apple of monopolizing the market and opposing free speech in a series of tweets.

"Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter," Musk posted on Twitter in November 2022. "Do they hate free speech in America?"

In a series of tweets, Musk accused Apple of being politically biased, called for Apple to publish all actions it has taken toward censorship, and asked his followers for support in his fight against the largest tech company in the world.

The Tesla CEO and "Chief Twit" later added that Apple had "threatened" to take Twitter off its App Store and "won't tell us why."

A spokesperson for Apple did not respond to a request for comment at the time.

 

Musk took aim at Cook in 2022.

Musk said Apple stopped spending ad money on Twitter in 2022, but Cook never publicly responded.

"What's going on here @tim_cook?" Musk tweeted in November 2022.

In the first quarter of 2022, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, accounting for 4% of the social media company's revenue, according to The Washington Post.

Up until Musk's takeover, Twitter and Apple appeared to enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Apple has frequently used the site for product announcements, and Apple even integrated tweets in its iOS operating system in 2011.

In a op-ed with The New York Times, Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety, said that "the calls from the app review teams had already begun" when Musk's rollout of paid verification badges led to chaos, with users impersonating public figures and major companies.

 

But Musk didn't seem afraid of the consequences of beefing with Apple.

In the past, Musk has said he doesn't see Apple as a threat to Tesla.

Musk said in November 2022 that he'd create his own smartphone if Apple booted Twitter off the App Store.

"I certainly hope it does not come to that, but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone," Musk posted on Twitter.

Musk hinted that his next step could be an iPhone following Apple's WWDC event. 

After a user on X, formerly Twitter, posted that they foresee the platform partnering with Samsung to manufacture an X phone, Musk responded, "It is not out of the question."

 

Musk seemed to let go of his beef with Apple after he visited its headquarters on November 30, 2022.

Days after declaring "war" on Apple, Musk posted a video that appeared to show him at Apple's campus in Cupertino, California. New York Times reporter Kate Conger also posted on Twitter at the time that Musk and Cook were spotted together on Apple's campus by employees. 

"Thanks @tim_cook for taking me around Apple's beautiful HQ," Musk posted on Twitter later that day.

In an interview with GQ several months later in April 2023, Cook opened up about his relationship with Musk and said he felt "very strongly about engaging with people regardless of whether they agree with you or not."

"I actually think it's even more important to engage when there's disagreement," Cook said in the interview.

Since then, Musk seemed to quiet down about his criticism of Apple and its CEO — at least temporarily. 

Musk has never shied away from picking a fight online.

The billionaire has been known to start his fair share of feuds on X, and he's never appeared hesitant to speak his mind.

Musk has public feuds with both Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman. Most recently, the billionaire sued OpenAI accusing it of betraying its original mission of being open-sourced and "developing AGI for the benefit of humanity."

Musk has also publicly argued with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Stephen King on X. The billionaire also seems to have a tense relationship with Don Lemon. After Lemon interviewed Musk and asked some tough questions, including about antisemitism on the platform and his ketamine use, the billionaire abruptly canceled X's partnership with the former CNN host. 

Musk has also personally called up CEOs of companies that have pulled ads from X to complain, Financial Times reported in November 2022.

 

Now, Musk is threatening to take action against Apple users after denouncing its partnership with OpenAI.

After Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI at the WWDC conference on Monday, Musk published a number of posts on X denouncing Apple's move to integrate ChatGPT as an opt-in feature across its software on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.

"If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies," Musk wrote. "That is an unacceptable security violation."

He also added that anyone visiting his companies would have to store their Apple devices in a Faraday cage, which is a type of container that blocks electromagnetic transmissions.

Musk, whose Grok AI chatbot is a ChatGPT competitor, also mocked Apple's artificial-intelligence chops, posting that it wasn't "smart enough to make their own AI."

Musk also took hits directly at Apple during and after the WWDC event.

In addition to multiple posts slamming Apple's partnership with OpenAI, Musk also made it clear he wasn't impressed with the company's other offerings.

During the event, Musk replied to a post on X about the crowd cheering when Apple introduced an iPhone home screen revamp with, "Um ok."

He also responded to a post from Cook that promoted Apple Intelligence with disinterest in its offerings. 

"Don't want it," the Tesla CEO said."Either stop this creepy spyware or all Apple devices will be banned from the premises of my companies."

Apple has yet to comment on Musk's criticisms.

In the meantime, it appears that Musk's one-sided beef with the company will continue.

Apple's Apple Intelligence features are scheduled to roll out later this year alongside the new iPhone lineup. Tesla, SpaceX, and X employees will likely be waiting to see whether their boss makes good on his word and bans the company's devices.