Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over AI Monopoly, App Store Censorship

Elon Musk is drawing a legal line in the sand this time against two of Big Tech’s most powerful players.

On Monday, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI filed a federal lawsuit in Texas accusing Apple and OpenAI of colluding to suppress competition and rig the future of artificial intelligence. The explosive suit alleges that Apple’s sweetheart deal with OpenAI has locked xAI’s Grok chatbot out of top rankings on the App Store, giving ChatGPT an unfair and possibly illegal advantage.

“If not for its exclusive deal with OpenAI, Apple would have no reason to refrain from more prominently featuring the X app and the Grok app in its App Store,” the lawsuit reads.

In plain terms: Musk is accusing Apple of stacking the deck, rigging App Store algorithms to keep OpenAI’s rivals like Grok buried beneath a wave of corporate collusion.

xAI is seeking billions in damages.

This isn’t a baseless claim either. Apple recently announced the integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT directly into iPhones, iPads, and Macs effectively making OpenAI the default AI assistant across millions of devices worldwide. That kind of dominance is a dream for tech giants, but for startups and competitors like xAI, it’s a death sentence.

Musk is fighting back.

This lawsuit is the latest in a growing list of legal salvos Musk has launched against the AI industry’s sudden centralization. He’s already suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in California for abandoning the company’s original nonprofit mission in favor of corporate profit and exclusivity. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, argues the company has become the exact type of monopoly it once claimed to fight.

OpenAI brushed off the latest legal action, calling it “harassment.” Apple, as usual, remained silent.

But silence speaks volumes especially from a company that’s already been sued for anti-competitive practices in an ongoing battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. That case resulted in a judge ordering Apple to open up its app payment system to more competition something it has so far dragged its feet on.

Now Musk is highlighting an even more urgent threat: the monopolization of AI itself.

• OpenAI's ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in history after its late 2022 launch.

• Apple’s exclusive deal essentially cements OpenAI as the default AI provider across all iOS devices.

• xAI’s Grok, despite innovations and deep integration with X and Tesla, is getting buried by App Store bias.

If this is allowed to continue, the future of AI won’t be decided by innovation it’ll be decided by backroom deals and corporate gatekeeping.

And that should alarm every American who cares about free markets, free speech, and the future of digital freedom.

Elon Musk may be one of the few people with the resources and the guts to challenge the tech oligarchy head-on. This lawsuit could reshape how AI is distributed, monetized, and controlled in the years to come.

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