Apple wants judge to dismiss Elon Musk's 'absurd' ChatGPT bias claim

Apple

Apple has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X Corp, calling its claims over Apple’s partnership with OpenAI “patently absurd.”

The dispute began when Musk accused Apple of rigging App Store AI rankings to favour OpenAI. He alleged this amounted to an antitrust violation that made it impossible for other AI apps to reach the top spot. X Corp escalated by suing Apple, arguing that the company was legally obliged to partner with Musk’s xAI and other chatbot makers if it chose to work with OpenAI.

The suit hinges on Apple Intelligence, the company’s new AI assistant, which integrates ChatGPT as a fallback when Siri cannot answer a query. Apple has denied any wrongdoing, stressing that its integration with OpenAI does not exclude others. In fact, the company told the court it intends to work with multiple AI providers in future, dismissing the idea that antitrust laws require it to partner with every chatbot “regardless of quality, privacy, safety, technical feasibility, or commercial terms.”

The filing comes after Musk’s own Grok chatbot contradicted him, noting that rivals like DeepSeek and Perplexity have already climbed App Store rankings, undermining his monopoly argument. Critics have also pointed to Musk’s history of tweaking X’s algorithm to boost his own posts as evidence of double standards.

Apple’s motion, filed in court this week, seeks to have the case dismissed outright. A ruling on whether the lawsuit proceeds is still pending.