Elon Musk is suing Apple and OpenAI over claims that their deal to construct ChatGPT into the iPhone is stifling competitors within the AI business. In a lawsuit filed on Monday, the Musk-owned X Corp. and xAI additionally accuse Apple’s Apple Retailer of “deprioritizing” rival chatbots and “tremendous” apps, together with Grok and X.
Musk’s corporations declare that iPhone customers “haven’t any motive” to obtain third-party AI apps as a result of the corporate “power[s]” customers to make use of ChatGPT as their default chatbot app when enabling Apple Intelligence. “Apple and OpenAI have locked up markets to keep up their monopolies and stop innovators like X and xAI from competing,” the businesses allege.
Musk threatened Apple with authorized motion earlier this month after accusing the corporate of rigging App Retailer rankings in favor of OpenAI. “Apple is behaving in a fashion that makes it inconceivable for any AI firm in addition to OpenAI to achieve #1 within the App Retailer, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation,” Musk mentioned on the time.
The lawsuit provides that although the X and Grok apps have obtained excessive rankings, neither seems within the App Retailer’s “Should-Have Apps” part, the place ChatGPT was allegedly the “solely” AI chatbot within the part on August twenty fourth, 2025.
X and xAI additionally accuse Apple’s partnership with OpenAI of making a “moat” that protects the AI big because of “Apple’s monopoly in smartphones.” It notes that the iPhone’s ChatGPT integration provides OpenAI entry to “doubtlessly billions of person prompts originating from a whole lot of tens of millions of iPhones,” allegedly giving it an unfair benefit.
“This newest submitting is in step with Mr Musk’s ongoing sample of harassment,” OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wooden mentioned in an emailed assertion to The Verge. Apple advised Bloomberg earlier this month that its retailer is “designed to be truthful and freed from bias” in response to Musk’s claims.
