According to xAI, Job's Mob has effectively made ChatGPT the only AI model that benefits from the firehose of user prompts coming from hundreds of millions of iPhones, giving OpenAI a major leg-up over its rivals.
The lawsuit moans that Apple has been fiddling its App Store rankings to downplay rival chatbot apps, including xAI’s own Grok and the X app.
“In a desperate bid to protect its smartphone monopoly, Apple has joined forces with the company that most benefits from inhibiting competition and innovation in AI: OpenAI, a monopolist in the market for generative AI chatbots,” the complaint states.
An OpenAI spokesman waved off the suit, calling it "consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment." The chatbot pusher is already fending off a separate lawsuit from Musk, who wants to stop it morphing into a profit-chasing machine.
Job’s Mob kept schtum, but it’s previously insisted the App Store plays fair and that OpenAI was chosen purely on the strength of its product. Executives have claimed it only teams up with what they consider the best tech to enhance user experience. No word yet on whether that includes letting competing apps breathe.
The suit draws parallels with the US Department of Justice’s antitrust hammering of Google. A judge in that case said Google illegally hogged the search market by locking up distribution on iPhones. xAI claims OpenAI is doing the same with Apple’s help, monopolising AI search by locking up the iPhone pipeline.
Google reportedly forks out more than $20 billion a year to Apple for pole position on Safari. That cosy deal is now under threat, and the judge is expected to suggest fixes that could ripple through Apple’s other AI flirtations.
xAI is painting both Apple and OpenAI as monopolists who fear the rise of Musk’s Grok and the bundled super-app vision of X. According to the lawsuit, Job’s Mob sees AI super-apps as an existential risk to the iPhone, since they could reduce the need for smartphones altogether.
Whether Musk's claims hold up in court is another matter. Some might ask why Apple would boost OpenAI if it truly poses a larger threat than Musk’s own ambitions. OpenAI did recently snap up ex-Apple design boss Jony Ive to help it cook up a post-smartphone device, but Apple hasn’t yet shown much public panic.
Super-apps like WeChat have taken off in China, bundling social media, food delivery, and ride hailing into one megatonne of user engagement. But in the US, punters seem to prefer their apps in separate silos. That hasn’t stopped Musk from trying to turn X into the next big thing, despite the limited traction.
