Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday took his war of words with Apple and OpenAI to the courts, with a lawsuit accusing the two of colluding to solidify monopolies in the rapidly growing market for AI chatbots. The complaint follows weeks of public criticism from Musk, who has claimed that Apple “secretly integrated” ChatGPT into its iPhone, while refusing to give the same treatment to Musk’s own chatbot Grok.

Filed on behalf of Musk’s companies X and xAI, the lawsuit alleges an exclusive deal between Apple and OpenAI that amounts to “shared, anticompetitive monopolization” of iPhone features and the broader generative AI chatbot market. It claims that the arrangement in antitrust and unfair competition laws, and asks for an injunction to block Apple’s integration of ChatGPT and billions of dollars in damages.

The court filing details a series of refusals by Apple to integrate Grok on equal terms with OpenAI. Unlike ChatGPT, Grok has not appeared on the App Store’s “Must Have” list, and was removed when it briefly did so, and Apple allegedly provided significant data and other resources to OpenAI while rejecting requests from xAI. The lawsuit also accuses Apple of manipulating App Store rankings and unduly delaying Grok app updates.

The broader significance, according to Musk, is Apple’s “explicit stated aim” of blocking the creation of a “general-purpose ‘everything’ app” built on the company’s Twitter platform. Competing chatbots, the filing says, would directly compete for data used to train their models, threatening OpenAI’s growing lead.

Apple Secures Generative AI Chatbot Monopoly

The lawsuit directly compares Apple’s OpenAI deal to its longstanding agreement to make Google Search the default search engine on iPhones and iPads, which U.S. antitrust regulators have said cemented Google’s monopoly. “Apple and OpenAI struck a similar deal to protect and enhance their respective monopolies” in chatbots, the lawsuit says.

Musk’s filing, from which some details have been redacted, also alleges that Apple has at various points refused to feature Grok on the App Store, including during the launch of the company’s new “Imagine” feature. “Instead of building it in the open so everyone has a chance to compete, Apple has buried Grok,” the complaint states.

Apple’s deal with OpenAI is exclusive, Musk alleges, effectively blocking any other chatbots from accessing the same scale of iPhone users and training data. It’s a highly significant deal for AI chatbots, Musk’s filing says, because of the 1.5 billion user requests Siri handled every day in 2024, globally. If Apple gives only OpenAI access to those prompts, it effectively controls up to 55 percent of all possible chatbot conversations, the lawsuit argues.

By comparison, other AI chatbot developers would not get access to billions of potential training prompts, making it much harder for them to compete. Apple’s own services chief Craig Federighi, Musk’s filing states, admitted the deal would give OpenAI “a massive amount of training data.” At the same time, the complaint notes, Apple artificially suppressed Siri’s performance during the Apple Intelligence launch to leave a “gap” that ChatGPT could fill.

Apple has long argued that Siri is a core iPhone feature, and ChatGPT’s tighter integration as the default chatbot on iPhone will deepen that impression. Federighi has repeatedly said that the goal is for Siri to “just get out of your way.” The new chatbot feature is to “better understand your questions,” he said, and “automatically select the tool best suited to give you the answer you’re looking for.”

Musk’s filing warns of further anticompetitive conduct down the road, as well. Apple could acquire OpenAI in order to permanently block Grok and other rivals, or offer additional benefits to OpenAI that lock its lead. Competing chatbots, the lawsuit also alleges, will have little access to the data needed to train their models at scale, while Apple could prioritize ChatGPT over Siri in conversation interfaces, for example.

Apple, for its part, “may fear that a rival super app will someday make iPhones less useful (as WeChat already has in China),” Musk’s complaint notes. Musk even alleges one Apple executive, Eddy Cue, said AI tools “destroyed Apple’s smartphone business” and “Apple was paying OpenAI with a product we might not ever have again.”

Apple Insider Sources

The filing also draws on what it says are interviews with Apple employees and industry sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential dealings with the company. One employee, according to the filing, told Musk that Apple didn’t want to be a platform for competing chatbots, and a “single large app store presence” like it had given OpenAI because of the “commercial challenges” it would pose.

“Put differently, if Apple gave xAI and other chatbot makers the data, infrastructure, and market access it has given to OpenAI, it would harm the iPhone’s monopoly position in the mobile phone market,” the filing states. Musk even alleged an Apple employee, while visiting his California property, “referred to OpenAI as his daughter’s new boyfriend” in a remark about the companies’ relationship.

In an email to Ars Technica, OpenAI said Musk’s suit was “the latest in an ongoing pattern of harassment by Elon Musk and his companies.” Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple and OpenAI’s Exclusive Deal and Monopoly

The lawsuit asks the court for billions of dollars in damages to Musk’s companies X and xAI, and a permanent injunction blocking Apple’s “existing and future discriminatory conduct” that “explicitly favors” OpenAI’s products and services.

Apple and OpenAI’s deal, the filing says, “sacrifices any near-term profit” in exchange for the “value” of shutting out the competition, which both companies recognize and accept. OpenAI provided ChatGPT to Apple “for free,” the lawsuit states, and Apple’s “integration revenue from ChatGPT and Grok is close to zero and will remain so for the foreseeable future.”