Apple clears all their existing tweets following noone

There were no existing tweets on that account. They use promoted tweets instead. This is not a new thing:

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/02/the-invisible-apple-tweet/

https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/3/12781498/apple-twitter-acc...

https://medium.com/macoclock/apple-doesnt-tweet-848a25de004d