Elon Musk Accuses Apple Of Favouritism Towards OpenAI; Threatens Legal Action

Elon Musk has accused Apple of unfairly favouring OpenAI in its App Store, threatening immediate legal action against the tech giant.

The Tesla and SpaceX chief alleges that Apple’s policies have prevented his own AI startup, xAI, from claiming the top spot despite surging popularity.

Taking to X, Musk posted, “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.”

“Unfortunately, what choice do we have? Apple didn’t just put their thumb on the scale, they put their whole body!” Musk wrote in a separate post, escalating his criticism.

Grok’s Rise & OpenAI Competition Intensifies

The dispute comes amid intensifying competition between xAI’s large language model, Grok, and OpenAI’s widely used ChatGPT.

xAI launched Grok 4 last month, touting significant performance gains over rivals.

The company has since expanded its offering with Grok Imagine, enabling image and video generation, as well as personalised companion chatbots. These updates have propelled Grok from 60th place to second position in Apple’s Productivity category.

However, its free tier allows only a limited number of queries daily, after which users must subscribe.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in contrast, has consistently held first or second place in Apple’s overall charts for much of the past year.

Musk has argued that its dominance is not purely organic, pointing to Apple’s editorial promotion of ChatGPT on the App Store and its integration into Apple’s new ‘Apple Intelligence’ features. These include embedding OpenAI’s technology into Siri and writing tools, a move Musk believes gives ChatGPT an unfair competitive advantage.

Apple’s Integration of ChatGPT Under Scrutiny

The row deepens just weeks after Apple announced its collaboration with OpenAI, positioning ChatGPT as a core part of its AI ecosystem.

Industry analysts note that this partnership could raise questions about impartiality in App Store rankings and discoverability.

Adding to the competitive pressure, OpenAI launched GPT-5 last week, making it available to all users.

Plus subscribers receive higher usage limits, while Pro subscribers gain access to GPT-5 Pro, which offers extended reasoning capabilities for more detailed and accurate responses.

In a show of financial strength, OpenAI also announced substantial bonus payouts to around 1,000 employees, roughly a third of its workforce, on the eve of GPT-5’s release.

As of now, Apple has not issued a public response to Musk’s allegations. Legal experts suggest that any lawsuit could hinge on proving that Apple’s App Store algorithms and editorial practices constitute anti-competitive behaviour.

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