Musk Threatens Suit Against Apple Over ‘Favouring’ OpenAI In Global App Listing

Elon Musk has accused Apple Inc. of giving preferential treatment to OpenAI on its App Store.

The owner of the X social network and Grok AI chatbot alleged that the iPhone maker’s ranking system makes it “impossible” for other developers, including his own AI venture, xAI Holdings, to reach the top spot.

His clash with Apple and OpenAI followed his not-too-long confrontation with U.S. President Donald Trump in June.

In a post on the X social network on Tuesday, Musk claimed that Apple’s practices amount to “playing politics.”

“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 posted.

His remarks come amid growing scrutiny of Big Tech app store dominance and its influence over global app discovery.

In the U.S. App Store rankings, OpenAI’s ChatGPT app currently holds the No. 1 spot among free iPhone apps, while Grok sits at No. 5.

Musk has a long-running feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which began after the two co-founded the company but parted ways over strategic differences.

Altman dismissed Musk’s allegations, instead pointing to Musk’s management of X, suggesting he manipulates the platform for personal gain. “OpenAI will just stay focused on making great products,” Altman wrote.

“This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like,” Altman wrote in a direct response to Muk’s post.

Apple at its 2025 Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC, in June said it was deepening its relationship with OpenAI while also rolling out new artificial intelligence capabilities.