Elon Musk has opened another front in his war on the tech establishment. His AI venture, xAI, has hauled Apple and OpenAI into federal court in Texas, accusing them of carving up the artificial intelligence market to strangle rivals before they can catch their breath.
According to the lawsuit, Apple’s deep embrace of ChatGPT within iPhones, iPads, and Macs isn’t just innovation—it’s collusion. Musk’s camp argues that Apple’s partnership with OpenAI has turned the App Store into hostile territory for competitors, especially xAI’s Grok chatbot.
“If Apple weren’t locked into OpenAI, Grok and X would be topping App Store charts,” the filing insists, while demanding billions in damages.
Apple stayed silent on the matter. OpenAI, however, pushed back with a sharp retort, dismissing Musk’s move as part of his “ongoing pattern of harassment.” Musk, unfazed, doubled down on X, writing: “A million reviews with a 4.9 average for Grok, and still Apple refuses to acknowledge it.”
This showdown has been brewing for weeks. Earlier this month Musk threatened legal action, saying Apple’s integration of OpenAI “makes it impossible for any other AI company to hit #1 in the App Store.”
Behind the bluster lies a pivotal question: are Apple and OpenAI simply playing hardball in business, or are they reshaping the rules of the AI marketplace to lock everyone else out? Legal scholars say the case could become a landmark in defining what “the AI market” even means in antitrust law. One called it “a canary in the coal mine” for how courts will treat the emerging power struggles in artificial intelligence.
The fight is just one of several Musk has launched against OpenAI, a company he helped cofound in 2015 before it transitioned from nonprofit ideals to profit-driven expansion. Meanwhile, Apple’s App Store is already under fire from other cases, including the long-running battle with Fortnite-maker Epic Games over app payments and competition.
With xAI still less than two years old but already integrated into Tesla vehicles and banking on Grok’s rapid growth, the lawsuit could either ignite Musk’s AI ambitions—or crash them against Apple’s walled garden.
