Elon Musk is once again back in the limelight and this time, it is related to xAI and its Grok AI chatbot. Musk, who is also the CEO of xAI, has accused Apple of favouring OpenAI’s offerings on its Apple App Store. In a series of posts on his timeline on X, Musk has called for fair exposure to other AI companies and not to promote OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the only AI app that one can rely on.
After Musk warned Apple for suing over antitrust violations for non-OpeAI AI apps in the App Store, the Tesla CEO shared another post on X, emphasising how crucial Apple is for the people of America and how denying it the exposure affects the company. In a separate post, which shared details on the deal between Apple and OpenAI, Musk wrote, “Apple is the gateway to the Internet for half of America. They are making it impossible for any other AI company to succeed by relentlessly promoting OpenAI in every way possible!”
Musk accuses Apple of favouring OpenAI
The post, which Musk shared, talks about how Apple is ‘paying’ for the deal with OpenAI by promoting ChatGPT and GPT models wherever possible on the App Store instead of a cash-based deal. The X user wrote,”GROK currently offers a far better service and has the highest ratings on the App Store… Yet Apple favors ChatGPT unconditionally through score high downloads position…. By placing ChatGPT at one tap install…(This part is as clear as it can be).”
In a prior post, Elon Musk made it clear that he was willing to sue Apple Inc. over antitrust violations in the management of the App Store. Musk’s accusation lingers on Apple’s ‘favouritism’ toward OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which currently dominates the App Store’s top free apps rankings.
To provide context, Musk’s Grok AI chatbot falls behind at fifth place. Despite the recent advancements with the Grok-4 AI model, the Grok chatbot continues to evade the list of the top five AI bots.
“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,” wrote Musk. Apple, however, is yet to come up with a statement or response. OpenAI and Apple have been in a partnership since a year to extend help to Apple’s Siri assistant.
Sam Altman reacts to Musk’s claims
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared his views on Musk’s allegations, accusing him of doing the same 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,” wrote Altman.
On the sidenote, xAI recently made Grok-4 available to free tier users on iOS and Android after keeping the newest models locked behind paywall. Industry experts view this move as xAI’s attempt to reduce the impact of OpenAI’s new GPT-5 models, which promise significant improvements in overall performance.