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Elon Musk took his fight with Apple and OpenAI to court on Monday, filing a lawsuit that accuses the tech giants of teaming up to cement monopolies in the rapidly growing AI chatbot market. The filing by Musk’s companies X and xAI comes just weeks after he publicly denounced Apple for repeatedly featuring OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the App Store, while his own chatbot, Grok, has not made the “Must Have” list.

The suit goes far beyond App Store rankings, alleging Apple and OpenAI have made an exclusive deal to give ChatGPT deep access to iPhone features while keeping rivals like Grok out. Musk claims this violates antitrust and unfair competition laws, with serious consequences for his vision of creating an “everything app” atop Twitter, which he bought in 2022.

Apple made ChatGPT the default AI chatbot throughout iOS, including in Siri, Apple’s Writing Tools, and many other features, the complaint says. That gives OpenAI access to billions of user prompts that it can use to improve its technology and crowd out competitors that cannot reach as many users. X estimates OpenAI already has at least 80 percent of the market for generative AI chatbots, and could lock in that lead for years to come.

“In a competitive market, generative AI chatbots would vigorously compete with one another,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, defendants’ anticompetitive conduct has handed a substantial portion of the market to ChatGPT.”

Musk’s filing claims Apple is motivated by a fear that a successful rival super app could eventually make iPhones less necessary, just as WeChat has replaced standalone apps for messaging, payment, commerce, maps, search, and more in China. It even cites an Apple executive, Eddy Cue, saying, “if artificial intelligence is real … we will destroy Apple’s smartphone business.” By teaming up with OpenAI, Musk’s lawsuit argues, Apple is staking out a defense of its iPhone monopoly while giving OpenAI a near-insurmountable lead in generative AI.

Apple’s Exclusive Deal

The lawsuit compares the deal to Apple’s long-standing arrangement with Google as the default search engine, which U.S. regulators have argued cements Google’s monopoly. The filing alleges Apple rejected multiple attempts by xAI to integrate Grok in iOS, refused to feature Grok in the App Store, and even denied requests to appear when it released its new “Imagine” feature. Beyond that, the filing claims Apple rigged App Store rankings and stymied competition by purposefully delaying Grok updates.

Musk argues the risks of Apple’s arrangement extend far beyond Grok’s potential. The lawsuit notes Siri alone received 1.5 billion user requests per day globally in 2024, more than the total prompts for all generative AI chatbots combined that year. If only OpenAI receives that data, it has a near monopoly on all AI chatbot prompts, which X estimates is up to 55 percent of potential interactions, the lawsuit argues.

The filing warns that the consequences for consumers could be serious. Apple customers may have fewer options and worse chatbots while paying monopoly prices for iPhones. OpenAI could use its position to raise subscription prices, with plans to double its “plus” subscription price over the next four years. “That plan would be unfeasible unless OpenAI has power over marketwide prices,” the lawsuit states.

The agreement could also stifle investment in rivals. If Apple “presses its thumb firmly on the scale in ChatGPT’s favor, investors may see little value in developing or investing in competitors,” Musk’s lawsuit says. “This has the effect of sapping such potential rivals of resources they need to hire talent and compete, while Apple and other Big Tech firms scoop up that talent from failed upstarts.”

The lawsuit casts doubt on the financial logic of the Apple-OpenAI deal. Musk’s filing says OpenAI provided ChatGPT for free, essentially paying for the partnership itself, while Apple took on substantial costs to integrate it and is not expected to see a profit for some time. The filing suggests both Apple and OpenAI value the deal’s exclusivity more than immediate revenue because it broadly blocks rivals and cements market control.

“By making the deal exclusive, Apple sacrificed the profits it would have earned by integrating multiple chatbots,” the complaint states. “The true motive was Apple and OpenAI’s shared goal of blocking competition.”

Musk’s own future rides on the line. He warns that without relief, Grok may never have a fair shot at competition, making X less valuable to users and investors. “Because Grok’s functionality is a key feature of the X app, the X app is more attractive the better Grok performs,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants’ conduct makes Grok less able to compete with ChatGPT, leading to fewer customers, less revenue, and ultimately a depressed enterprise value for X.”

Musk’s companies are seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as a permanent injunction blocking Apple from its exclusive integration of ChatGPT. OpenAI, in a statement to Ars Technica, dismissed the filing as “part of Elon Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment.” Apple declined to comment.

Whether a court agrees with Musk that Apple and OpenAI are illegally entrenching monopolies could decide not only Grok’s fate, but also the competitive landscape for the next chapter of AI innovation.