Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma Hits Out At Google After Elon Musk Calls Apple App Store Fees 'De Facto Global Tax'

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Friday (30 July) came out in support of 'Fortnite' game maker Epic Games as the company is engaged in a legal battle with tech giant Apple over the App Store fees.

Musk described the fees charged by Apple on its App Store as a "de facto global tax" on the internet.

Epic Games had last year filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the iPhone maker has abused its dominance in the market for mobile apps.

The game develop was removed from the App Store by Apple after it broke the tech giant's rules by introducing its own in-app payment system in Fortnite game to circumvent Apple's commissions.

"Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet. Epic is right," Musk said in a tweet.

Meanwhile, responding to Musk's tweet, Indian fintech major Paytm's founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma hit out at another US tech giant Google for charging 30 per cent commission on its app store.

"Google Play Store fees : 30 per cent (excluding GST) are costlier than business tax on India’s internet ecosystem," Sharma said.

"It is the all the margin in a mobile-android age company!" the Paytm founder added.

It should be noted that Paytm was involved in a stand-off with Google after its own app was removed from Play Store last year. The Fintech major later launched an Android Mini App Store to support local developers take their innovative products to the masses.