X and xAI accuse tech giants of colluding to crush competition in the fast-growing AI race
US billionaire Elon Musk’s two companies, social media firm X and AI startup xAI, sued Apple and OpenAI on Monday, accusing them of an “anticompetitive scheme” to “thwart” artificial intelligence competitors.
The two companies also claimed that Apple and OpenAI “colluded” to maintain monopolies in the smartphone and generative AI markets, according to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
In addition, it accuses Apple of favoring OpenAI by incorporating its ChatGPT chatbot into Apple devices while downgrading rivals’ generative AI chatbots, such as xAI’s Grok, and so-called “super apps” in its App Store rankings.
“Unless the court enjoins Apple and OpenAI’s unlawful conduct, defendants will continue to thwart competition, and their competitors, like plaintiffs, will continue to suffer the anticompetitive consequences,” it wrote.
In a post on the US social media company X earlier this month, Musk vowed to sue Apple for “an unequivocal antitrust violation,” claiming that the firm “is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store.”
Last year, Apple and OpenAI collaborated to include ChatGPT in Mac laptops, desktop computers, iPhones, and iPads.
After Apple and OpenAI announced their alliance, competitor chatbot applications like DeepSeek and Perplexity were placed No. 1 on the App Store, according to many people who responded to Musk’s post on X using its Community Notes function.
The lawsuit is the most recent development in Musk and Sam Altman’s continuing conflict. Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left the company in 2018 because of differences in their vision for it.
Last year, Musk filed a lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI, claiming that they had broken the terms of their agreement by prioritizing business interests over the company’s initial goal of creating AI “for the benefit of humanity broadly.”
