Musk threatens Apple lawsuit over AI chatbot app store rankings
Elon Musk, the prolific entrepreneur behind Tesla and X, has escalated his ongoing feud with Apple, threatening immediate legal action over alleged antitrust violations in the tech giant’s App Store. At the heart of the dispute is Musk’s accusation that Apple is deliberately manipulating App Store rankings to favor OpenAI’s ChatGPT over Grok, the AI chatbot developed by his company, xAI.
Musk, leveraging his platform X, asserted that Apple’s conduct makes it “impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store,” labeling it an “unequivocal antitrust violation.” As of early August 2025, ChatGPT consistently holds the top spot among free iPhone applications in the United States, while Grok lags behind at sixth place. Beyond the general rankings, Musk also questioned Apple’s refusal to feature either X or Grok in its curated “Must Have” section, despite his claim that X is the world’s leading news application and Grok holds a significant overall ranking. Grok itself echoed these sentiments on X, suggesting Apple’s curation might be biased against xAI’s “unfiltered style,” prioritizing politics over fair competition.
This latest salvo from Musk arrives roughly a year after Apple announced a significant partnership with OpenAI at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024. This collaboration integrates ChatGPT, initially powered by GPT-4o and slated to advance to GPT-5 for upcoming iOS 26 and macOS “Tahoe” releases, directly into Apple’s ecosystem. This means users can access ChatGPT’s capabilities, including image and document understanding, through Siri and Apple’s system-wide writing tools without needing to switch applications. While Apple emphasizes user privacy, requiring explicit consent before data sharing and obscuring IP addresses, this strategic alliance provides OpenAI with unprecedented access to Apple’s vast user base and significant prominence, without direct financial payment from Apple.
Musk, who was an early co-founder of OpenAI before his departure and a subsequent lawsuit against the company in March 2024, has been a vocal critic of this partnership. He previously threatened to ban Apple devices from his companies, including X, Tesla, and SpaceX, citing privacy concerns. Despite Musk’s complaints about App Store favoritism, Grok has seen recent success, with its Grok 4 model driving a substantial revenue increase and climbing to second place in the Productivity category and as high as fifth overall among free apps after being made free worldwide.
In response to Musk’s accusations, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman swiftly fired back, suggesting that Musk’s claims were “remarkable” given past allegations that Musk himself manipulates X’s algorithm to benefit his own companies and disadvantage competitors. This public spat highlights the intensifying rivalry within the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence sector.
The controversy also adds to Apple’s existing challenges regarding its App Store practices. The company has faced ongoing antitrust scrutiny, including a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice and a substantial fine from the European Union over alleged anti-competitive behavior. While Musk and xAI have yet to provide concrete evidence to support their claims of marketplace manipulation, the threat of legal action from a high-profile figure like Musk could intensify regulatory and public pressure on Apple to address transparency in its App Store algorithms and curation processes. The outcome of this potential lawsuit, should it materialize, could have significant implications for how AI applications compete for visibility and adoption within dominant digital ecosystems.