Billionaire Musk has filed a US lawsuit against two Texas tech giants, claiming that Apple has curtailed Grok's Xai in exchange for Openai, and that it has agreed.
Released on August 25th, 2025
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup Xai has sued Apple and ChatGpt maker Openai, accusing them of illegally conspiring to stop AI competition.
The lawsuit filed Monday in US federal court in Texas states that Apple and Openai are “confining the market to maintain their monopoly and preventing innovators like X and Xai from competing.”
The complaint filed by the billionaire said Apple and Openai conspired to curb Xai products, including the Apple App Store. “Without an exclusive deal with Openai, there is no reason for Apple to refrain from introducing more prominently to the X and Grok apps in the App Store,” says Xai.
The lawsuit noted that in June 2024, Apple and Openai announced that ChatGpt would be integrated into Apple's operating system under an exclusive arrangement.
“With Openai's exclusive arrangement, ChatGPT has become the only generation AI chatbot integrated into the iPhone. This means that if iPhone users want to use the generation AI chatbot for important tasks on their devices, they have no choice but to use ChatGPT.
Apple holds 65% of its smartphone market share.
The giants of Silicon Valley Tech and Openai did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier this month, Musk threatened to sue Cupertino, California-based Apple, and in a post on his social media platform X, Apple's actions would “make it impossible for AI companies other than Openai to reach #1 on the App Store.”
Apple's partnership with OpenAI has integrated the AI platform ChatGPT into iPhone, iPad and Mac computers.
“This is a surprising argument considering that we've heard that Elon is trying to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own company and harm people he doesn't like.”
Musk has a long history of chasing companies that are haunted by his side. The billionaires sued several brands, including Lego and Nestle, who stopped ads for X amid hostile rhetoric on the platform.
Musk's Xai acquired X for $33 billion in March to enhance its chatbot training capabilities. Musk has also integrated the Grok Chatbot into a vehicle built by his electric car company Tesla.
Musk's Xai was launched two years ago and competes with Microsoft-backed Openai and Chinese startup Deepseek.
Musk is separately suing Openai and its CEO Altman in federal court in California to stop the transition from a nonprofit to a commercial business. In 2015, Musk co-founded Openai with Altman.
Apple's App Store practices were the focus of multiple lawsuits. In one ongoing case by Fortnite video game maker Epic Games, the judge ordered Apple to step up the competition for payment options for the app.
On Wall Street, Apple's stock has not responded to the lawsuit and is still up 0.6% that day. However, Openai is not public, nor is it Xai. However, Tesla, another Musk venture, is up 1.2% as of 12pm in New York (16:00 GMT).
