xAI fires legal rocket at Apple and OpenAI claiming they're locking out Grok

Lawsuit 'consistent with Mr Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment' says Altman's crew

Elon Musk's xAI and X businesses have shown a bad case of the Mondays by launching an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI that claims the duo are trying to stifle competition in the mobile machine-intelligence world.

"OpenAI controls at least 80 percent of the market. Because of OpenAI’s monopoly, other generative AI chatbots have struggled to gain share," the lawsuit [PDF] complains.

"xAI’s Grok has yet to gain more than a few percent of the market despite accolades about its superior features. Just like Apple, OpenAI has incentive to protect its monopoly by thwarting competition and innovation in the generative AI chatbot market. And just like Apple, it has done so in violation of the antitrust laws."

In 61 pages of court documents xAI filed on Monday in the Northern District of Texas, xAI claims that Apple's June deal with OpenAI to integrate with Cupertino's kit was a breach of antitrust laws. Specifically Musk's company accuses the pair of violating six counts under the 1890 Sherman Act, and one each of civil conspiracy and unfair conspiracy, and two counts under the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act. Musk's social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which agreed to acquire xAI earlier this year, was also named as a plaintiff.

OpenAI is less than impressed, telling The Register "This latest filing is consistent with Mr Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment." Apple and xAI have yet to resapond to requests for comment.

xAI claims that the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 "blindsided" Apple and that the iPhone iterator has been playing catch-up ever since, worried that "super apps" - such as the one xAI claims to be developing - will erode Siri's position as the digital assistant of choice. It claims that Apple signed an exclusive deal with OpenAI, despite the fact that you can upload other AI search tools like Grok, Gemini, and others, to iOS and macOS.

It's true that Apple has been slow to take up AI on its platform, lacking a serious alternative to other LLM models. At last week's Google Pixel 10 launch, the Chocolate Factory was somewhat scathing about Apple's decision to delay full AI integration into the next generation of iKit.

But the lawsuit claims that "Apple’s use of its monopoly power to favor ChatGPT in its App Store rankings and to delay reviews of Grok app updates prevents Grok - one of the biggest threats to ChatGPT - from gaining access to user prompts needed to scale."

It accuses Apple of downgrading other AI apps in favor of ChatGPT. While the lawsuit acknowledges iPhones can use other AI engines, it claims that OpenAI competitors don't get enough promotion.

The lawsuit cites the list of "Must-Have Apps" posted on Sunday, in which OpenAI was the only AI app listed. Also included were Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble. Musk's lawyers claim that Cook & Co's statement in the T&Cs that Apple's store "is designed to be fair and free of bias," is a lie.

Musk first started complaining about the alleged unfair treatment on August 11, when he claimed antitrust violations on the App Store favoring OpenAI. Commenters were quick to point out that DeepSeek had got a number one rating in the software souk. OpenAI's boss fired back with the comment "Will you sign an affidavit that you have never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies? I will apologize if so."

Humiliatingly, Grok - xAI's own engine - agreed with Musk's competitor when it posted a response to Sam Altman's own X post about the matter on August 11.

"Sam Altman is right. Musk's Apple antitrust claim is undermined by apps like DeepSeek and Perplexity reaching [top rankings] in 2025. Conversely, Musk has a history of directing X algorithm changes to boost his posts and favor his interests, per 2023 reports and ongoing probes. Hypocrisy noted," it stated.

Oddly, the lawsuit doesn't mention AI companies buying access to other platforms. Take, for example, xAI paying Telegram $300 million to become the default AI search tool for the messaging service. ®