Elon Musk Announces Legal Action Against Apple Over ChatGPT App Store Dominance
Following his recent acquisition of X Corporation, Elon Musk has unveiled plans to initiate legal proceedings against Apple Inc. The entrepreneur claims that the exclusive prominence of ChatGPT - a leading AI application developed by OpenAI - within the iOS App Store constitutes antitrust violations.
In a late Monday post on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Musk stated: "Apple's current practices make it impossible for any AI company other than OpenAI to achieve #1 status on the App Store. We at xAI will immediately pursue legal action against these anti-competitive behaviors." The X user base subsequently highlighted that DeepSeek's AI service had temporarily dethroned ChatGPT as the top application in the American App Store, while Perplexity AI Inc.'s search engine achieved the #1 position in India earlier this year.
Founded in March 2023, xAI Holdings Corp. emerged as a direct competitor to OpenAI. The startup offers a series of large language models under the Grok brand and a corresponding chatbot interface. Earlier this year, xAI executed a $3.3 billion all-stock acquisition of X Corporation, significantly expanding its technological capabilities.
Musk further questioned Apple's application store curation policies in his X post, asking: "When X is the world's #1 news app and Grok ranks as the #5 app overall, why do you exclude X or Grok from your 'Essentials' section? Are you engaging in political favoritism?"
According to a recent CNBC report, ChatGPT is projected to surpass 700 million weekly active users. Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimated xAI's Grok app achieved 4 million downloads in July, while web analytics company Similarweb recorded approximately 900,000 daily website visitors for the Grok platform earlier this year.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, responded to Musk's allegations on X, stating: "Given reports about Elon leveraging X to benefit himself and his companies while harming competitors and individuals he dislikes, this is quite an accusation to make."
The ongoing legal dispute remains unclear in its specific focus - whether it will target ChatGPT's App Store ranking or the strategic partnership between Apple and OpenAI. Last year, the iPhone manufacturer entered into an agreement to integrate OpenAI's language models with Siri. Additionally, Apple currently utilizes ChatGPT technology to enhance its writing tools' proofreading and text generation capabilities.
Should the business relationship between Apple and OpenAI become central to the lawsuit, Musk might include OpenAI as a co-defendant. He has already initiated legal action against ChatGPT developers for alleged misrepresentations regarding their AI development programs.
Originally established in 2015 with funding from Musk and other tech executives, OpenAI initially pledged to operate as a nonprofit organization while freely providing its large language models upon fundraising. Musk's lawsuit alleges these commitments were subsequently violated by the AI developer.
In April of this year, OpenAI filed a counter-suit against Musk, alleging attempts to stifle market competition. ChatGPT developers recently requested xAI to share internal documents potentially relevant to the litigation. The case is scheduled for trial in spring 2025.
