Elon Musk Threatens Lawsuit Against Apple Over App Store AI Bias

Elon Musk has escalated a high-stakes dispute with Apple, threatening to sue the iPhone maker over what he calls biased treatment of his AI initiatives in the App Store. He asserts that Apple’s ranking practices prevent any AI company other than OpenAI from reaching the top of the charts, alleging an antitrust violation. Musk pointed to his social platform X and his AI project Grok as examples of apps that are not given fair visibility, while noting that OpenAI’s ChatGPT sits at or near the top across various charts. Apple has rejected the claim, saying its App Store discovery tools are designed to be fair and free of bias.

The episode is the latest flare-up in a long-running, public feud between Musk and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman. Musk helped launch OpenAI in 2015 but left its board in 2018 and subsequently founded his own AI venture, xAI, which developed Grok. The back-and-forth has included Musk accusing Apple of anticompetitive behavior and Altman publicly challenging Musk on his broader business conduct. The dispute also comes against a backdrop of past legal and regulatory scrutiny of Apple’s App Store policies, including a major antitrust ruling in Europe and ongoing...