Elon Musk, the CEO and Founder of xAI, has said that the company will take ‘immediate legal action’ against Apple.
In a post on X, Musk said, “Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 on the App Store,” and called it an unequivocal antitrust violation.
While Musk did not provide further information or evidence to back his claims, as of August 12, ChatGPT currently holds the top spot on the App Store in the US.
That said, OpenAI and Apple announced a partnership last year to integrate ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence for various capabilities, including image and document understanding.
Soon after Musk’s claims, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, hit back. In a post on X, Altman said, “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.”
This argument has now added another dimension to the heavily strained relationship between Musk and Altman, who once worked together at OpenAI.
“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,” Altman added.
However, several people on social media questioned Musk’s claims, pointing out how various AI apps other than ChatGPT have topped the charts on the App Store. At one point, DeepSeek, the AI app from China, made headlines for reaching the #1 spot on the App Store.
Additionally, Perplexity, which often presents itself as a competitor to ChatGPT, recently took the number one position in the App Store in India.
