Elon Musk is embarking on yet another expensive, but likely fruitless, legal challenge against a market opponent, with Musk’s xAI lodging a lawsuit against both Apple and OpenAI over alleged market collusion, which is designed, xAI claims, to stifle potential competition.
Earlier in the month, after the launch of xAI’s latest Grok 4 model, Musk accused Apple of deliberately restricting promotion of the Grok app, despite its clear popularity.
As per Musk:
“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.”
Which, of course, is incorrect.
As many have pointed out since Musk made this claim (and was even mentioned in a Community Note on Elon’s X post), many AI apps have reached the number one spot in the App Store rankings, including Perplexity, DeepSeek and Meta AI.
But for some reason, xAI has launched legal action on this basis either way, alleging that both Apple and OpenAI have "locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing."
The filing suggests that Apple’s partnership with OpenAI has driven the company to angle the market to benefit the company. Late last year, Apple reached a deal to integrate ChatGPT into its operating system for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, and xAI claims that this deal is why Apple is now penalizing xAI in its rankings.
"If not for its exclusive deal with OpenAI, Apple would have no reason to refrain from more prominently featuring the X app and the Grok app in its App Store."
Or both X and Grok are just not as popular as Elon thinks. But logic aside, it seems that xAI is going to go ahead with its legal action on this basis, which seems unlikely to do anything, other than costing all parties more money.
Though it could also backfire on Musk, by prompting Apple to take a closer eye at Elon’s apps, which may not pass the App Store qualifications around adult content or protection of kids. Indeed, the recent addition of NSFW AI companions on X could be due for App Store scrutiny, while Grok’s recent racist rants could also be problematic, if Apple were inclined to hit back at Musk’s companies.
I mean, last time Elon decided to take on Apple, over app store fees, he shut up pretty quick when Apple informed him of such risks.
But he’s evidently willing to risk it again, with his blind hatred for OpenAI seemingly still motivating him to seek any retribution he can, against the company that spurned him after he offered to be its CEO (and OpenAI declined) in its early stages.
So Elon just keeps taking OpenAI to court, costing it time and money in defending itself against his grievances.
Will it work? I would say that it’s unlikely, given that the basis for the case seems pretty easily refuted. But there must be some logic to Musk’s lawfare approach, heaping more and more pressure onto his opponents, in order to both gain press coverage for his businesses, and impede their growth with legal complications.
