Elon Musk Threatens To Sue Apple

CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, is about to wage war against Apple.

In a post on X on Monday, Elon Musk threatened to sue Apple over alleged antitrust violations.

Musk, in his post, claimed Apple was making it very difficult for other AI companies besides OpenAI to reach the top spot on the Apple App Store.

CNBC reported more details on Musk’s potential lawsuit against Apple:

Elon Musk on Monday threatened Apple with legal action over alleged antitrust violations related to rankings of the Grok AI chatbot app, which is owned by his artificial intelligence startup xAI.

“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 in a post on his social media platform X.

Apple declined to comment on Musk’s threat.

“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?” Musk said in another post.

Apple last year tied up with OpenAI to integrate its ChatGPT chatbot into iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop and desktop products. Musk at that time had said that “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.”

Prior to his legal threats against Apple, Musk had celebrated Grok surpassing Google as the fifth top free app on the App Store. When contacted by CNBC, xAI did not immediately respond to a request for further information on a potential lawsuit.

CNBC confirmed that ChatGPT was ranked No. 1 in the top free apps section of the American iOS store, and was the only AI chatbot in Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” section. The App Store also featured a link to download OpenAI’s new flagship AI model, ChatGPT-5 at the top of its “Apps” section.

OpenAI on Thursday announced GPT-5, its latest and most advanced large-scale AI model, following xAI’s release of its newest chatbot, Grok 4, last month.

Take a look:

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025

Grok is the smartest AI in the world on the toughest tests and just came first by far in coding, but is not mentioned at all under “AI” by Apple! pic.twitter.com/AkmfHkWhwJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025

Musk has also rekindled his feud with OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

PC Magazine reported more details on Musk and Altman’s feud:

Following up on his original message, Musk reposted various claims from other X users that Apple’s deal with OpenAI, first announced in June 2024, is the reason the company is prioritizing ChatGPT across its App Store.

Musk also claimed Apple is prioritizing OpenAI in its editorially controlled content. “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?” he wrote. He followed it up by asking directly, “Why is ChatGPT literally in every list where you have editorial control?”

In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “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 points to claims of Musk tweaking X’s algorithm in 2023. He cited a report from Platformer that says Musk asked the brand to show his tweets more regularly after President Biden’s post about that year’s Super Bowl did better than his.

Musk responded with: “You got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I’ve received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!”

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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. https://t.co/HlgzO4c2iC

— Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025

You got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I’ve received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025