Washington, Aug 12: Billionaire Elon Musk on Monday said his artificial intelligence startup xAI will take Apple to court, accusing the tech giant of violating antitrust laws by favoring OpenAI in its App Store rankings.
“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,” Musk wrote on his social platform X.
The remarks followed an earlier post in which Musk publicly challenged the company’s selection criteria. “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?” he said.
As of Monday, ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot, led the “Top Free Apps” list on iPhones in the United States, with xAI’s Grok in fifth place and Google’s Gemini ranked 57th, according to Sensor Tower. ChatGPT also tops the Google Play Store. Apple’s integration of ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads, and Macs stems from a partnership with OpenAI.
Neither Apple, OpenAI, nor xAI immediately responded to requests for comment. Musk did not present evidence for his claims.
The dispute comes amid mounting scrutiny of Apple’s control over its app marketplace. In April, a U.S. judge ruled that the company had breached a court order to foster more competition, referring the matter to federal prosecutors in a case brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games. That same month, the European Union fined Apple 500 million euros ($587 million) for restricting developers from steering users toward cheaper offers outside its platform, a violation of the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.
