Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI on Monday for ‘colluding’ to thwart competition from other chatbot makers. The case filed before a federal court in Texas contends that the integration of OpenAI into iPhone operating systems harms competition and deprives consumers of choice. The billionaire founder of xAI — which houses the Grok AI bot — also argued that Apple had made it impossible for anyone other than OpenAI to reach the top of App Store charts.
“Unless the court enjoins Apple and OpenAI’s unlawful conduct, defendants will continue to thwart competition, and their competitors, like plaintiffs, will continue to suffer the anticompetitive consequences,” a CNBC report quoted the complaint as saying.
The suit was filed by two of his companies — startup xAI and social media platform X — and accuses the pair of indulging in an “anti-competitive scheme” to thwart AI rivals and maintain monopoly. Musk contends that the iPhone maker is unfairly favouring the artificial intelligence app on its devices and also accuses Apple of deprioritizing “super apps” and generative AI chatbot competitors (such as Grok) in App Store rankings.
‘Unequivocal antitrust violation’
The lawsuit sets the stage for a high-stakes court showdown between the richest person on the planet and one of the world’s most valuable companies. Musk had threatened to sue Apple over the same issue earlier this month — vowing legal action against the “unequivocal antitrust violation”.
“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 had warned via social media in mid-August.
“Hey Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your ‘Must Have’ section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps? Are you playing politics? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know,” asked another post on X.