Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, and its subsidiary X Corp. filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing Apple and OpenAI of illegally conspiring to dominate the AI market in smartphones and block competitors from reaching users.
The lawsuit, filed in Texas, brings 10 claims in total and seeks billions in damages.
Musk alleges that Apple’s exclusive integration of ChatGPT into iOS devices unfairly locks out rival platforms such as xAI’s Grok, creating an anticompetitive monopoly.
“Defendants Apple and OpenAI have locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing,” the complaint reads.
In June 2024, Apple unveiled its partnership with OpenAI, announcing that ChatGPT would be directly integrated into the iPhone ecosystem.
The lawsuit argues that this arrangement forces iPhone users into dependency on OpenAI’s chatbot, shutting out alternatives.
“Generative AI chatbots improve their models based on a continuous feedback loop. More users beget more prompts, and more prompts offer more opportunities to train the model, whose better features then attract even more users,” the suit explains.
By funneling millions of user prompts exclusively into ChatGPT, Musk claims Apple effectively starved competitors like Grok of the ability to scale and innovate.
The lawsuit further alleges that Apple manipulated its App Store to “preference OpenAI” apps, disadvantaging rival AI platforms.
“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,” Musk posted on X earlier this month.
The lawsuit accuses Apple and OpenAI of violating several provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the landmark law designed to prevent monopolies and protect market competition.
Musk’s legal team argues that Apple’s exclusive partnership has deprived consumers of cheaper, more effective alternatives.
Apple has faced antitrust scrutiny before.
In April, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled Apple violated a previous order requiring it to loosen restrictions on its App Store, referring the company to federal prosecutors in a separate dispute with “Fortnite” developer Epic Games.
OpenAI quickly responded to the new filing, dismissing it as another example of Musk’s hostility toward the company he once helped found.
“This latest filing is consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement.
The response follows OpenAI’s own April countersuit against Musk, which accused him of running a “relentless” campaign against the company through the press and his social media platform, X, where Musk commands an audience of more than 220 million followers.
Musk has previously blasted Apple’s deal with OpenAI as “an unacceptable security violation,” even threatening to ban Apple devices from his companies’ premises in protest.
It remains unclear whether the ban was ever enforced.
With this lawsuit, Musk is directly challenging two of Silicon Valley’s biggest players and drawing fresh attention to the growing fight over who controls the future of artificial intelligence, and who profits from it.
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