Apple Accused of Favoring OpenAI in App Store by Elon Musk

Apple finds itself in the middle of a battle between Elon Musk, head of xAI, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Musk accuses Apple of favoring OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, on its App Store.

“Apple is acting in a way that makes it impossible for any AI company other than OpenAI to reach the top spot on the App Store, which is a clear violation of competition rules,”

Musk wrote on his social network, X. His company xAI, which developed the AI assistant Grok, "will immediately take legal action," he added.

The App Store allows users to download applications on Apple devices, such as iPhones. This platform is crucial for developers hoping to be chosen by consumers.

Apple, which provides little information about its selection criteria for featured applications, asserted that its download platform was "fair and free of any bias."

“We highlight thousands of applications through rankings, algorithmic recommendations, and editorial selections made by experts based on objective criteria,”

Apple stated in a message sent to Agence France-Presse via email.

Unsupported Accusations

The App Store has long been criticized by numerous authorities and companies, notably Epic Games, the publisher of the video game Fortnite. The platform, like Google’s Play Store, is accused of abusing its dominant position to impose itself as a mandatory gateway for application downloads and payments, levying significant commissions on user spending.

However, there is currently no evidence to support the accusations made by Elon Musk against Apple, as evidenced by the "community notes" added to Musk’s post. Through this tool, which allows users to provide clarifications or corrections to misleading or false messages, internet users point out that some AI tools, such as Deepseek or Perplexity, have managed to become among the most downloaded applications on the App Store in the past.

As noted by the specialized media outlet The Verge, one could also consider that the anomaly lies not so much in the current ranking of the X and Grok applications on the App Store as in the fact that they are still listed there. The very lax approach of the two applications to moderation means that they regularly violate the rules of the application store, the specialized site notes.

Elon Musk’s Crusade Against OpenAI

Elon Musk’s accusations have triggered a war of words on X between Musk and Sam Altman, the real target of this new crusade by the billionaire.

“That’s a remarkable claim given what I’ve heard about Elon manipulating X for his own benefit and that of his companies and to harm his competitors as well as people he doesn’t like,”

Altman wrote. Musk retorted that Altman "lies like he breathes."

The head of Tesla, SpaceX, and X, among other companies, was part of the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015. However, he left the company in 2018 and has been attacking it ever since the phenomenal success of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, including in court. Behind in generative AI, Apple launched "Apple Intelligence" in 2024, a series of AI-powered features, notably through an agreement with OpenAI.

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