Musk accuses Apple App Store of antitrust bias toward OpenAI

Elon Musk escalated a public dispute over the Apple App Store on Tuesday, accusing the iPhone maker of an antitrust violation by allegedly privileging OpenAI in its ranking charts and threatening immediate legal action. Apple publicly rejected the claim, saying the Store is designed to be fair and free of bias, while OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman framed the accusation as remarkable in light of Musk’s own business practices. The exchange falls within a longer-running feud between Musk and Altman and comes as Apple faces broader regulatory scrutiny over App Store practices.

At the heart of Musk’s statement is a contention that Apple’s ranking algorithms prevent any AI challenger from reaching the top positions unless it is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a claim he said would be pursued in court. He also questioned why Apple would not place his companies, X and Grok, in its “Must Have” section, indicating that X or Grok should be more visible given their popularity in other app charts. Musk did not provide public evidence to back the antitrust accusation, and Apple promptly pushed back, reiterating that the App Store relies on objective criteria across charts, recommendations and curated...