Musk Firms Sue Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged Anti-Competitive Behavior
Two Elon Musk-backed companies, X and xAI, have filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, accusing them of illegally collaborating to suppress competition in the artificial intelligence space.
Filed in federal court in Texas, the suit targets Apple’s 2024 decision to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its smartphone operating systems. Musk’s firms argue that this exclusive partnership violates antitrust laws by limiting competition and unfairly favoring OpenAI’s chatbot over rivals.
The legal action follows through on Musk’s earlier threats, in which he accused Apple of giving OpenAI preferential treatment in its App Store—claims that have now been formalized in court. While Apple has yet to comment on the lawsuit, OpenAI responded by calling the filing “consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment.”
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with CEO Sam Altman in 2015, has since broken ties with the company and become a vocal critic. He claims OpenAI has strayed far from its original mission to serve the public good and is now too closely aligned with corporate interests. In response, Musk launched his own AI ventures, including xAI and its flagship chatbot Grok, designed to compete directly with ChatGPT.
According to the lawsuit, the Apple-OpenAI arrangement gives ChatGPT an unfair advantage by providing access to vast amounts of user data from Apple devices, and by boosting its visibility and downloads through preferential placement in the App Store. The filing argues this harms innovation, reduces consumer choice, and strengthens both companies’ dominant positions—OpenAI in the AI chatbot market (with an estimated 80% share), and Apple in the smartphone market (with about 65% share).
“The Apple-OpenAI arrangement has foreclosed competition among generative AI chatbots, deprived competitors of necessary scale, and stifled innovation and quality,” the lawsuit claims. “These impacts have helped OpenAI and Apple maintain monopolistic control.”
Apple’s app store practices have long faced scrutiny, and the company is already embroiled in several antitrust lawsuits, including one against Google over similar monopoly concerns. Apple has consistently defended its App Store, stating it operates fairly and without bias.
Despite the claims in Musk’s lawsuit, alternative chatbots like DeepSeek and Perplexity have topped App Store charts at various times since 2024. Apple is also reportedly in discussions with Google to potentially integrate its Gemini chatbot into Siri, suggesting the company may not be limiting itself to a single AI partner.
The case adds another layer to the growing tension between Musk and OpenAI, intensifying a rivalry that now spans technology, ethics, and market dominance in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.