Elon Musk's xAI sues Apple and OpenAI over App Store drama

Elon Musk threatened to sue Apple for favoring ChatGPT over Grok in the App Store — and now he has.

On Monday, Musk's AI company xAI officially filed a lawsuit against Apple as well as ChatGPT creator OpenAI over the two companies' business partnership.

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"This is a tale of two monopolists joining forces to ensure their continued dominance in a world rapidly driven by the most powerful technology humanity has ever created: artificial intelligence," reads the opening of xAI's lawsuit.

"Working in tandem, Defendants Apple and OpenAI have locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing," the suit continues.

xAI's issue with Apple and OpenAI

xAI's suit claims that Apple boosts ChatGPT in the Apple App Store to the detriment of competing AI apps, like xAI's Grok.

"Apple has taken further steps to protect its monopoly in smartphones and to preference OpenAI by deprioritizing the apps of competing generative AI chatbots and super apps in its App Store rankings, and it has dragged out its App Store app review processes for those competitors," the lawsuit reads.

Alleged abuses of the App Store charts are only part of the suit, however. xAI's lawsuit also claims that Apple and OpenAI are partaking in monopolistic activities more broadly.

According to xAI, Apple's partnership with OpenAI, which includes integrating ChatGPT into Mac and iOS devices to power some Apple Intelligence features, has boxed Musk's company out of the AI race.

"As a result of Apple and OpenAI’s exclusive arrangement, ChatGPT is the only generative AI chatbot that benefits from billions of user prompts originating from hundreds of millions of iPhones," reads xAI's lawsuit. "This makes it hard for competitors of ChatGPT’s generative AI chatbot and super apps powered by generative AI chatbots to scale and innovate."

Will Musk and company beat Apple and OpenAI?

Prior to the lawsuit, Musk claimed on his social media platform X that it was "impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store." 

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However, users on Musk's platform disputed this using X's Community Notes feature. The Community Note embedded on Musk's posts provides proof that OpenAI competitors like DeepSeek and Perplexity have all reached #1 in App Store, even after the Apple and OpenAI partnership was formed.

Even so, a recent antitrust decision may work in Musk's favor. Last year Google lost an antitrust case concerning its paid partnership with Apple, which provided Google with the default search engine position on Apple's mobile devices. While there are differences between Apple's relationship with both companies, that case could become relevant here.

So, does Musk and xAI have a case here, or is he simply unhappy that his beloved Grok app hasn't taken off like its AI competitors? We'll soon find out as this plays out in court.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.