Elon Musk accuses Apple and OpenAI of stifling AI competition in lawsuit

Elon Musk has targeted Apple and OpenAI in a lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence (AI).

The 61-page complaint filed in a Texas federal court follows a threat Mr Musk made two weeks ago when he accused Apple of unfairly favouring OpenAI and ChatGPT in the iPhone’s app store rankings for top AI apps.

Mr Musk’s post insinuated that Apple had rigged the system against ChatGPT competitors such as the Grok chatbot made by his own xAI.

Now, he is detailing a litany of grievances in the lawsuit – filed by xAI and another of his corporate entities, X Corp – in an attempt to win monetary damages and a court order prohibiting the alleged illegal tactics.

The double-barrelled legal attack weaves together several recently unfolding narratives to recast a year-old partnership between Apple and OpenAI as a veiled conspiracy to stifle competition during a technological shift that could prove as revolutionary as the 2007 release of the iPhone.

“This is a tale of two monopolists joining forces to ensure their continued dominance in a world rapidly driven by the most powerful technology humanity has ever created: artificial intelligence,” the lawsuit asserts.

The complaint portrays Apple as a company that views AI as an “existential threat” to its future success, prompting it to collude with OpenAI in an attempt to protect the iPhone franchise that has long been its biggest moneymaker.

Some of the allegations accusing Apple of trying to shield the iPhone from do-everything “super apps”, such as the one Mr Musk has long been trying to create with X, echo a competition lawsuit filed against Apple last year by the US Department of Justice.

The complaint casts OpenAI as a threat to humanity bent on putting profits before public safety as it tries to build on its phenomenal growth since the late 2022 release of ChatGPT.

The depiction mirrors one already being drawn in another US federal lawsuit that Mr Musk filed last year, alleging OpenAI had betrayed its founding mission to serve as a non-profit research lab for the public good.

OpenAI has countered with a lawsuit against Mr Musk accusing him of harassment – an allegation that the company cited in its response to Monday’s lawsuit. “This latest filing is consistent with Mr Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment,” OpenAI said in a statement.

The crux of the lawsuit revolves around Apple’s decision to use ChatGPT as an AI-powered “answer engine” on the iPhone when the built-in technology on its device could not satisfy user needs.

The partnership announced last year was part of Apple’s late entry into the AI race that was supposed to be powered mostly by its own on-device technology, but the company still has not been able to deliver on all its promises.

Apple’s own AI shortcomings may be helping drive more usage of ChatGPT on the iPhone, providing OpenAI with invaluable data that’s unavailable to Grok and other would-be competitors because it is currently an exclusive partnership.

The alliance has provided Apple with an incentive to improperly elevate ChatGPT in the AI rankings of the iPhone’s app store, the lawsuit alleges.

Other AI apps from DeepSeek and Perplexity have periodically reached the top spot in the Apple app store’s AI rankings in at least some parts of the world since Apple announced its deal with ChatGPT.

The lawsuit does not mention the potential threat that ChatGPT could also pose to Apple and the iPhone’s future popularity.

As part of its expansion efforts, OpenAI recruited former Apple designer Jony Ive to oversee a project aimed at building an AI-powered device that many analysts believe could eventually mount a challenge to the iPhone.