Elon Musk says that his synthetic intelligence firm xAI “will take quick authorized motion” towards Apple for allegedly manipulating its App Retailer rankings to the benefit of rival AI apps. In a sequence of X posts on Monday evening, Musk advised that Apple was “enjoying politics” by not putting both X or xAI’s Grok chatbot within the App Retailer’s listing of advisable iOS apps, and that he had no selection however to file a lawsuit.
“Apple is behaving in a fashion that makes it inconceivable for any AI firm in addition to OpenAI to succeed in #1 within the App Retailer, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation,” Musk mentioned. “Why do you refuse to place both X or Grok in your ‘Should Have’ part when X is the #1 information app on this planet and Grok is #5 amongst all apps?,” the xAI CEO requested Apple in one other publish, which is now pinned to his profile.
Musk offered no proof for his claims, and it’s unclear if he has made good on his threats and filed the lawsuit but. The Verge has reached out to xAI, Apple, and OpenAI for remark.
On the time of writing, ChatGPT is listed as Apple’s high free iPhone app within the US, with Grok ranked because the sixth. China’s DeepSeek AI briefly managed to take the highest App Retailer place from ChatGPT in January, nonetheless, disproving Musk’s declare that it could be inconceivable for different AI apps to take action.
Accusations of meddling from Musk are ironic, given allegations about alterations made to X after he acquired the corporate in 2022, then often called Twitter. A analysis examine in 2024 advised that X’s algorithm was manipulated to spice up posts from Musk’s account. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Musk’s posts by sharing a Platformer report from 2023 that equally discovered Musk had a system constructed to advertise his X posts to your entire platform’s userbase. In June, the “maximally truth-seeking” Grok chatbot was additionally discovered to be consulting Musk’s opinion earlier than offering solutions to controversial questions round matters like Israel and Palestine, US immigration, and abortion.
This isn’t the primary time that Musk has beefed with Apple and OpenAI. Musk was an early founder at OpenAI, and beforehand focused the AI startup through lawsuits and a unanimously rejected $97.4 billion buyout provide after taking subject with its pivot to being a profit-driven enterprise. Following OpenAI’s partnership with Apple to combine ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads, and Macs final 12 months, Musk threatened to ban Apple units at his firms if OpenAI’s tech was fused with Apple’s OS.