Elon Musk threatens legal action against Apple over App Store dominance and OpenAI partnership

Elon Musk has announced his intention to take legal action against Apple, alleging that the technology giant favours his former company, OpenAI, within its App Store to the detriment of rivals. Musk’s company, xAI, claims Apple has created conditions where no AI company other than OpenAI can achieve the top App Store ranking, calling this an unambiguous antitrust violation.

This latest dispute reignites a fractious relationship between Musk and OpenAI, a company he co-founded in 2015 before departing in February 2018. Relations between Musk and OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, have soured significantly, now publicly marked by a bitter exchange of accusations. Altman rebuffed Musk’s assertions, hinting that Musk has leveraged the X social platform—where he holds significant ownership—for personal and commercial advantage. In response, Musk pointed to disparities in viewership and engagement, suggesting bias against his ventures on platforms he does not fully control.

Central to Musk’s grievance is Apple’s agreement last year to embed OpenAI’s ChatGPT into the operating system powering iPhones and its generative AI offerings under the Apple Intelligence banner. This move granted ChatGPT major prominence and, according to Sensor Tower figures, resulted in 938 million app downloads, far outpacing competitors such as Google’s Gemini, DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Grok, xAI’s chatbot, now trails ChatGPT in UK app downloads alongside the likes of Proton’s VPN service.

While Musk is known for frequent recourse to litigation—including multiple attempts to sue OpenAI over shifts in its corporate direction—he faces significant headwinds. OpenAI’s fundraising starkly exceeds its nearest peers, recently attracting $8.3 billion to reach a vast $300 billion valuation. Anthropic, with backing from Amazon, reached a $61.5 billion valuation earlier this year, and xAI itself is valued at $113 billion after a recent deal involving Morgan Stanley.

Despite the dispute’s personal and competitive undertones, the outcome could have material implications for the future landscape of the AI and technology sectors. Investors will be watching closely as the power dynamics between these tech titans continue to play out in both the courtroom and the marketplace.