Elon Musk's xAI sues Apple and OpenAI over App Store rankings – Quartz
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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is suing Apple and OpenAI in a Texas federal court for allegedly scheming to block other AI competition after threatening a suit weeks ago.
The suit filed Monday claims that “working in tandem,” Apple and OpenAI have “locked up markets” in order to “maintain their monopolies” and prevent others “like X and xAI from competing.”
It added that xAI is suing to stop the two tech giants from “perpetrating their anticompetitive scheme.” Musk’s AI company seeks billions in damages.
OpenAI and Apple announced a partnership back in June 2024 through which the iPhone maker planned to incorporate ChatGPT — OpenAI’s chatbot — into its iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Siri, and Writing Tools later that year.
“As a result of Apple and OpenAI’s exclusive arrangement, ChatGPT is the only generative AI chatbot that benefits from billions of user prompts originating from hundreds of millions of iPhones,” the lawsuit said. “This makes it hard for competitors of ChatGPT’s generative AI chatbot and super apps powered by generative AI chatbots to scale and innovate.”
The lawsuit claims Apple is showing preference to OpenAI in its App Store by “deprioritizing the apps of competing generative AI chatbots and super apps” in its App Store rankings.
"This latest filing is consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment," an OpenAI spokesperson told Quartz.
Apple did not immediately respond to Quartz's request for comment.
On Aug. 11, Musk said in a post on X that xAI would take “immediate legal action” against the iPhone maker for alleged prejudice in its App Store.
Musk went on to claim that Apple won’t let any AI app reach the top spot in its store other than OpenAI's ChatGPT.
“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,” he said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Musk's claim in his own post on X.
"This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like," Altman said.
A community note was added to Musk’s post negating his allegations; it cited articles that detail times when other AI companies, including DeepSeek and Perplexity, held the top spot in Apple’s App Store after its OpenAI deal was announced.
Musk originally helped start OpenAI as a nonprofit. Last year he sued the company and its CEO Sam Altman for alleged breach of contract, CNBC reported, and in the lawsuit Musk tried to block the ChatGPT owner from turning it into a for-profit company.
XAI updated its own status and is no longer a public benefit corporation, according to Nevada state records, CNBC reported.
Musk, along with a group of investors, made a bid to buy the nonprofit that owns OpenAI for $97.4 billion in February. A court filing from Thursday found that Musk had asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to get involved in his bid.
