Elon Musk Accuses App Store of Favouring OpenAI

Elon Musk has escalated his ongoing feud with OpenAI to the Apple App Store, accusing the tech giant of favouring ChatGPT in its digital marketplace and pledging legal action.

“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation,” Musk wrote on his social network X on Monday, offering no evidence to substantiate his claim.
“xAI will take immediate legal action,” he added, referring to his own artificial intelligence company.

App Store Rankings and Competition

Musk’s accusations were met with pushback from X users, who noted that DeepSeek AI, a Chinese startup, reached the top spot in the App Store earlier this year, while Perplexity AI recently ranked number one in India.

Both DeepSeek and Perplexity directly compete with OpenAI and Musk’s xAI.

App Store listings on Tuesday showed ChatGPT as the top free iPhone app, with Musk’s Grok in fifth place. Factors influencing these rankings include user engagement, reviews, and download numbers.

Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Alliances and Industry Developments

OpenAI and Apple announced an alliance in June last year to integrate ChatGPT features into iPhones and other Apple devices.

Last week, OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT-5 free to its nearly 700 million weekly users, according to a briefing with journalists.

Meanwhile, tech rivals including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI have been investing billions into artificial intelligence since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.

Chinese startup DeepSeek made headlines earlier this year with a model that delivers high performance on lower-cost chips, shaking up the AI sector

Legal Feuds and Countersuits

OpenAI filed counterclaims against Musk in April, accusing its former co-founder of waging a “relentless campaign” to damage the organisation after it succeeded without him.

Legal documents filed in northern California federal court alleged that Musk became hostile toward OpenAI after abandoning the company years before its breakthrough achievements with ChatGPT.

The countersuit is part of a bitter feud between the generative AI (genAI) start-up and Musk, who previously sued OpenAI for allegedly betraying its founding mission.

OpenAI’s legal filings claimed Musk:

“made it his project to take down OpenAI, and to build a direct competitor that would seize the technological lead — not for humanity but for Elon Musk.”

Musk founded his genAI startup xAI in 2023 to compete directly with OpenAI and other major AI players. Both OpenAI and xAI released new versions of their AI assistants, ChatGPT and Grok, in the past week.

Summary Table: AI Competition and App Store Rankings