Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Monday that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, will take legal action against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), alleging the company has violated antitrust regulations through its management of App Store rankings.
“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. xAI will take immediate legal action,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X.
Musk did not present evidence to substantiate his claims, and representatives for Apple, OpenAI, and xAI did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
As of Monday, OpenAI’s ChatGPT app holds the top position in the App Store’s “Top Free Apps” section for iPhones in the United States. xAI’s Grok app ranks fifth, while Google’s Gemini chatbot stands at 57th, according to market intelligence provider Sensor Tower. ChatGPT also leads downloads on the Google Play Store.
Apple has an ongoing partnership with OpenAI that integrates ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers. Musk has previously criticized Apple over its App Store promotion practices, questioning in an earlier post why neither X nor Grok appears in the platform’s “Must Have” section. “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?” he wrote.
The dispute comes amid growing regulatory and competitive scrutiny of Apple’s control over its App Store ecosystem. In April, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Apple had violated a court order requiring it to allow greater competition in its App Store. The court referred the company to federal prosecutors for a potential criminal contempt investigation, in a case brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.
That same month, the European Commission fined Apple €500 million ($587 million) for breaching the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Regulators concluded that Apple’s technical and commercial restrictions prevented app developers from directing users toward cheaper offers outside the App Store.
Musk’s announcement adds another high-profile challenge to Apple’s business practices, which remain under close watch by regulators worldwide.
