Elon Musk has threatened to sue Apple, according to a MacRumors report. He claims that the Cupertino device maker is violating antitrust regulations by favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT in App Store rankings over his Grok AI assistant.
“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 said in a post on X (Twitter), which he also owns.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025
Musk didn’t provide any evidence to support his claim, while other X users pointed out that DeepSeek reached #1 overall on the App Store in January, long after Apple’s partnership with OpenAI was announced.
Musk also criticized Apple for not featuring X or Grok in the App Store’s “Must Have” section. At the time of this writing, ChatGPT holds the top spot for free apps, while Grok ranks sixth. Google’s Gemini chatbot sits at 57th.
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? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know. https://t.co/3wenLZGtwG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2025
A bit of a billionaire X flame war began, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman firing back with his own X post:
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. https://t.co/HlgzO4c2iC
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025
Musk’s remarks come amid growing pressure on Apple from regulators and competitors around the globe over its App Store practices.
