{"id":63297,"date":"2025-08-12T19:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T19:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/63297\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T19:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T19:39:09","slug":"elon-musk-threatens-apple-with-lawsuit-over-openai-sparking-sam-altman-feud-elon-musk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/63297\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk threatens Apple with lawsuit over OpenAI, sparking Sam Altman feud | Elon Musk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk<\/a> has threatened legal action against Apple on behalf of his artificial intelligence startup xAI, accusing the iPhone maker of favoring OpenAI<\/a> and breaching antitrust regulations in managing the rankings in its App Store. The posts elicited snide responses from Sam Altman<\/a>, the OpenAI CEO, and began a spat between the two former business partners on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cApple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI<\/a> to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. xAI will take immediate legal action,\u201d Musk said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

In a post earlier that day, he wrote: \u201cHey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your \u2018Must Have\u2019 section when X<\/a> is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps? Are you playing politics?\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT currently holds the top spot in the App Store\u2019s \u201cTop Free Apps\u201d section in the US, while xAI\u2019s Grok ranks fifth. Apple has a partnership with OpenAI that integrates ChatGPT<\/a> into iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple and xAI did not provide comment.<\/p>\n

Altman responded to Musk on X: \u201cThis is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn\u2019t like.\u201d Musk has bent X\u2019s algorithmic recommendations<\/a> to favor his own tweets, according to multiple reports.<\/p>\n

Altman and Musk founded OpenAI together in 2015, but Musk left the startup and rescinded funding in 2018 after proposing to take it over, a petition other executives rebuffed. Musk has since sued the company twice over its planned transition to a for-profit enterprise, alleging \u201cdeceit of Shakespearean proportions\u201d. Altman has cast Musk as a bitter and petty ex-partner who was jealous of the company\u2019s success after departing.<\/p>\n

Musk replied to Altman\u2019s tweet: \u201cYou got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I\u2019ve received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!\u201d<\/p>\n

Altman replied to Musk multiple times, first calling his lack of views a \u201cskill issue\u201d, then \u201cor bots\u201d, and then offered a legal question of his own: \u201cWill you sign an affidavit that you have never directed changes to the X<\/a> algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies? i will apologize if so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Users on X \u2013 through the community notes feature \u2013 have pointed out that a few apps besides OpenAI have taken the top spot on the App Store this year.<\/p>\n

Chinese AI app DeepSeek reached the No 1 spot on the platform in January, while in July, Perplexity took first place in India\u2019s App Store \u2013 both occurring after the OpenAI and Apple<\/a> partnership struck last year.<\/p>\n

One user asked X\u2019s native AI, Grok, who was right in the feud. The chatbot replied<\/a>: \u201cBased on verified evidence, Sam Altman is right.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Musk\u2019s comments come as regulators and rivals intensify scrutiny of Apple\u2019s control over its App Store.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Apple was ordered to pay a fine of \u20ac500m<\/a> ($581.15m) by the EU antitrust enforcer, which said the company\u2019s restrictions prevented developers from steering users outside the App Store.<\/p>\n

The US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in early 2024, accusing the iPhone maker of creating and maintaining \u201cbroad, sustained, and illegal<\/a>\u201d smartphone monopoly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk has threatened legal action against Apple on behalf of his artificial intelligence startup xAI, accusing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-63297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}