Elon Musk says his AI startup, xAI, will sue Apple for allegedly rigging its App Store to favor competitors—a move he called a clear antitrust violation.
In a series of posts on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk claimed Apple was ensuring OpenAI’s ChatGPT kept the top spot among mobile apps while his own AI model, Grok, languished in sixth place in the U.S.
Grok has had a series of high-profile controversies—spewing antisemitic abuse, praising Adolf Hitler, and declaring Trump “the most notorious criminal” in Washington, D.C.
Musk-owned X briefly banned Grok when its replies had once again crossed into hate-speech territory.
“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,” Musk wrote, vowing “immediate legal action.”
He also accused the company of political bias. “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…Are you playing politics? What gives?”
He added in a later post, “Apple behaves like it’s owned by OpenAI – why?”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman fired back.
“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,” Altman said.
“I hope someone will get counter-discovery on this, I and many others would love to know what’s been happening. But OpenAI will just stay focused on making great products,” he added.
The pair co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left the board in 2018, citing potential conflicts with Tesla’s AI work. Relations soon soured, and Musk became a vocal critic of OpenAI’s shift toward a for-profit model and its close ties with Microsoft, accusing the company of straying from its original mission. Altman, in turn, has publicly pushed back on Musk’s claims, questioning his motives and management style.
In February 2025, Musk led a failed $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI.
The latest advancement of OpenAI, GPT-5, came in for criticism for its propensity to make errors with basic tasks, despite it being dubbed “PhD level” by its creators.
Altman said last week that it was like having “access to a PhD-level expert in your pocket,” but users quickly found faults. For example, the bot thought that there were three Rs in the words “Northern Territory” and three Bs in “blueberry.” The chatbot was also reportedly unable to correctly identify the U.S. states containing the letter R and misspelt some of them. “Krizona, “Vermoni,” “New Jefst,” and “Mitroinia” were all U.S. states, according to the software.
Meanwhile, Apple CEO Tim Cook rocked up at the White House to bend the knee to President Donald Trump. The billionaire came bearing gifts, too.
He handed over a 24-carat gold base ornament to announce the tech company’s extra $100 billion investment in American manufacturing.
The president started the press conference by calling Cook, “One of the great and most esteemed business leaders and geniuses and innovators anywhere in the world.”
However, Trump is perhaps more accustomed to calling him “Tim Apple.” Trump claimed in 2019 that this is a “time-saving” hack, but many believe it was a slip of the tongue that stuck.
In June 2024, Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT services to its devices. Musk responded by threatening to ban Apple products from his companies, including X, Tesla, and SpaceX, though it remains unclear if he carried out the threat.
Apple has faced repeated antitrust scrutiny. The EU fined it $580 million in April for blocking app makers from steering users to cheaper options, and nearly $2 billion last year for favoring its own music service over rivals like Spotify.
The Daily Beast has reached out to xAI, Apple, and OpenAI for comment.
