Elon Musk has said his AI startup, xAI, will sue Apple for allegedly breaching antitrust laws through its App Store ranking system. The billionaire made the announcement on Monday in a post on X, claiming Apple’s practices favor OpenAI at the expense of competitors.
“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store,” Musk wrote, calling it an “unequivocal antitrust violation” and vowing immediate legal action.
Apple, which has integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its devices, did not comment on the allegations. Neither did OpenAI or xAI. Musk offered no proof to back his claims.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pushed back, writing on X: “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies.”
At present, ChatGPT leads the “Top Free Apps” chart in the U.S. App Store, while Grok sits at number five. Musk has also accused Apple of political bias for not listing X or Grok in its “Must Have” section, despite their high rankings.
Users on X highlighted that other apps, including China’s DeepSeek and Perplexity in India, have reached the top position this year, showing that OpenAI has not held the spot exclusively.
The clash comes as Apple faces mounting antitrust scrutiny worldwide. Earlier in 2025, the EU fined the company €500 million for imposing restrictions on developers that prevented them from directing users away from the App Store.