Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, and its subsidiary X Corp. filed a federal lawsuit Monday accusing Apple and OpenAI of illegally conspiring to dominate the AI market in smartphones and block competitors from reaching users.
The lawsuit, filed in Texas, brings 10 claims in total and seeks billions in damages.
Musk alleges that Apple’s exclusive integration of ChatGPT into iOS devices unfairly locks out rival platforms such as xAI’s Grok, creating an anticompetitive monopoly.
“Defendants Apple and OpenAI have locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing,” the complaint reads.
In June 2024, Apple unveiled its partnership with OpenAI, announcing that ChatGPT would be directly integrated into the iPhone ecosystem.
The lawsuit argues that this arrangement forces iPhone users into dependency on OpenAI’s chatbot, shutting out alternatives.
“Generative AI chatbots improve their models based on a continuous feedback loop. More users beget more prompts, and more prompts offer more opportunities to train the model, whose better features then attract even more users,” the suit explains.
By funneling millions of user prompts exclusively into ChatGPT, Musk claims Apple effectively starved competitors like Grok of the ability to scale and innovate.
The lawsuit further