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Elon Musk threatens Apple with legal action on Monday over alleged antitrust violations related to App Store rankings of xAI’s Grok AI chatbot app.
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Musk claimed Apple’s practices make it “impossible” for any AI company except OpenAI to reach the top spot in the App Store, calling it an “unequivocal antitrust violation.”
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OpenAI’s ChatGPT holds the No. 1 spot in the U.S. iOS App Store’s top free apps, while Grok ranks fifth.
A person holds a smartphone displaying the iOS Store page for Grok, with the Apple logo visible in the background. Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur, escalated his feud with OpenAI on Monday, August 11, 2025, by threatening “immediate” legal action against Apple, accusing the tech giant of antitrust violations. Musk alleged that Apple’s App Store policies unfairly favor OpenAI’s ChatGPT over his company xAI’s Grok AI chatbot, stifling competition.
“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 did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Musk further criticized Apple’s editorial choices, questioning why neither X, the world’s top news app, nor Grok, ranked fifth among all apps, were included in the App Store’s “Must-Have Apps” section. “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?” he posted on X.
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The controversy stems from Apple’s 2024 partnership with OpenAI, announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10, 2024, to integrate ChatGPT into iPhone, iPad, Mac laptops, and desktops. Musk had previously opposed this deal, stating in June 2024 that integrating OpenAI at the operating system level was “an unacceptable security violation” and threatened to ban Apple devices at his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX,and X.
Musk’s accusations come as Grok recently climbed to the fifth spot among free apps in the U.S. App Store, surpassing Google, while ChatGPT holds the top position and is the only AI chatbot featured in Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” section. The App Store also prominently links to OpenAI’s new flagship model, ChatGPT-5, at the top of its “Apps” section. xAI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for further details on the potential lawsuit.
The dispute is part of Musk’s ongoing rivalry with OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015 before leaving its board in 2018. Musk has since sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging they abandoned the company’s original mission to develop AI “for the benefit of humanity broadly.” In response to Musk’s claims against Apple, Altman posted on X, calling them “remarkable” given allegations that Musk manipulates X to favor his own companies and harm competitors. “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.
Musk’s legal threats add to Apple’s existing antitrust challenges. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone ecosystem monopoly. In June 2025, a panel of judges rejected Apple’s emergency application to halt App Store changes stemming from a ruling in its legal battle with Epic Games, which required Apple to stop charging commissions on in-app payment links and allow developers more freedom in how those links are presented.
The departure of Robert Keele, xAI’s former head of legal, was announced last week, citing “daylight between our worldviews” with Musk and a desire to spend more time with family. This development could complicate xAI’s legal strategy as it prepares to challenge Apple.
This article is based on a report by Dylan Butts, published by CNBC on August 12, 2025. Read the original at CNBC. Additional context was drawn from posts on X discussing the Musk-Apple dispute.
