The legal battle begins: Elon Musk’s xAI sues Apple and OpenAI for manipulating App Store rankings

Elon Musk has filed an official lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI for unfair partnership and manipulating App Store rankings.

xAI CEO, Elon Musk, has accused Apple and OpenAI of antitrust violations and has sued the tech giants for partnering and manipulating the App Store ranking. Earlier this month, Musk highlighted that the App Store rankings showcased OpenAI’s ChatGPT among the top apps, but there is no mention of X or Grok despite the advancement and popularity. He also accused Apple of favouring OpenAI and threatened the company with legal action against an unequivocal antitrust violation. Now, xAI has filed an official lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI for the same reasons that it's making it challenging for other AI companies to remain the top choice of users.

The legal battle among top tech giants, xAI, Apple, and OpenAI begins. Here’s everything you need to know. (via REUTERS)

By Aishwarya Panda

Aishwarya Panda is a Senior Content Producer at Hindustan Times Digital Stream with nearly 4 years of experience in tech content writing. She is passionate about writing and exploring her interests in the ever-evolving world of technology. She loves to get her hands on new tech products and gadgets, especially in the space of smartphones.

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The start of a legal battle between Elon Musk, Apple and OpenAI

On Monday, Elon Musk’s xAI has reported to filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI in the Texas court, accusing the tech giants of being in an unfair business deal. The lawsuit highlights Apple's unfair advantage over OpenAI’s ChatGPT and blocking AI companies, including xAI, from being among the top apps in Apple’s App Store.

The lawsuit mentions, “Apple and OpenAI’s exclusive arrangement has made ChatGPT the only generative AI chatbot integrated into the iPhone.” It further adds, “ChatGPT is the only generative AI chatbot that benefits from billions of user prompts originating from hundreds of millions of iPhones. This makes it hard for competitors of ChatGPT’s generative AI chatbot and super apps powered by generative AI chatbots to scale and innovate.”

To provide evidence to the accusations, xAI has provided App Store rankings, which Musk believes to be manipulated in favour of OpenAI, and editorial features for why the xAI app never appeared in Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” guide on the App Store.

As of now, both OpenAI and Apple have shared a statement on the matter; however, earlier this month, Apple shared a statement on X highlighting its “fair and free of bias” ways of curating the top apps’ list and Must-have apps on the App Store. In addition, popular Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek was also ranked #1 in the App Store ranking back in January, highlighting its popularity and growing use.

Apple is also reported to be in talks with other AI companies for integrating AI chatbots into iPhones. Apple’s Craig Federighi highlighted the company’s goals of exploring other AI models like Google’s Gemini AI and Anthropic as alternatives to ChatGPT.

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