Elon Musk is threatening to take Apple to court, accusing the company of stacking the App Store deck in OpenAI’s favour. In a post on X, Musk alleged that Apple’s handling of AI app rankings makes it “impossible” for any competitor — including his own AI startup, xAI — to claim the number one spot.
The accusation comes amid a surge in competition between Grok, xAI’s large language model, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Last month, xAI launched Grok 4, promising significant performance gains over rivals. Since then, it has added flashy features such as Grok Imagine for image and video generation, as well as personalised “companion” chatbots. The app’s ranking has climbed from the 60s to as high as second in Apple’s Productivity category, thanks in part to Musk making Grok 4 free globally.
Yet ChatGPT has remained firmly at, or near, the top of Apple’s overall charts for much of the past year. It’s not just organic popularity at play, Musk suggests — Apple has repeatedly featured ChatGPT in App Store editorial content and baked OpenAI’s tech into its Apple Intelligence rollout, integrating it directly into Siri and writing tools.
Musk’s claim? That this cosy relationship amounts to an anticompetitive stranglehold on the AI app market. “Unequivocal antitrust violation,” he wrote, vowing “immediate legal action.”
Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.xAI will take immediate legal action. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025
The history between Musk and OpenAI adds extra spice to the fight. He co-founded the company before an acrimonious split, later suing to block its shift to a for-profit model — a case still in progress. Now, his xAI venture is a direct competitor, and Apple’s platform is the battleground.
Whether Musk’s legal threat turns into actual courtroom drama remains to be seen. He’s made similar public promises before without following through.
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