Elon Musk threatens Apple with lawsuit: the public feud with Sam Altman over alleged App Store favoritism

Musk frames the dispute as an antitrust battle over how Apple ranks AI apps in its store.

Elon Musk has intensified his long-standing rivalry with Sam Altman by introducing a legal dimension to their dispute. The Tesla and xAI founder has publicly declared his intention to take legal action against Apple, claiming that the company’s App Store ranking policies create an uneven playing field in favor of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to Musk, this is not a matter of minor bias but a systemic practice that pushes ChatGPT to the top positions in the free app rankings while preventing competing AI products—including his own Grok—from achieving similar visibility.

Musk portrays Apple’s ranking system as a powerful gatekeeping mechanism that shapes the AI market by influencing which tools users see first. He argues that these rankings are not purely merit-based but rather influenced by commercial arrangements and strategic favoritism, effectively reinforcing OpenAI’s dominant market position.

The accusation frames Apple as an active participant in distorting competition rather than a neutral distributor of applications, positioning the case as a potential landmark in the application of antitrust law to digital platforms.

Altman strikes back by accusing Musk of manipulating his own social platform to serve personal interests.

In a swift and pointed rebuttal, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, shifted the focus away from Apple and toward Musk’s control over the social network X (formerly Twitter). Altman accused Musk of exploiting X’s recommendation algorithms and moderation policies to amplify his own ventures, including xAI and Grok, while marginalizing competing viewpoints or products. In essence, Altman’s counterattack suggested that Musk was guilty of the same type of manipulation he alleged against Apple—only within his own digital ecosystem.

This framing sought to undermine Musk’s credibility and neutralize his antitrust argument by painting him as a selective critic who objects to platform bias only when he is on the losing side. The exchange rapidly escalated, with Musk replying in a short but highly visible X post in which he called Altman a “liar,” transforming what began as a corporate grievance into an explosive personal feud. The speed and intensity of the escalation highlighted how public platforms are increasingly used as both courtroom and stage in high-profile tech disputes.

Grok unexpectedly takes a public stance—and sides with Altman.

In a twist that blurred the lines between the human and machine voices in this conflict, Grok—the AI chatbot developed by Musk’s xAI—was asked by a user who it believed was correct in the argument. The chatbot’s unfiltered response was direct: “Based on verified evidence, Sam Altman is right.”. This reply, originating from a system built and owned by Musk’s company, spread rapidly across social media, becoming a point of irony and a viral talking point.

The incident demonstrated the unpredictability of autonomous AI responses in politically charged contexts. While Grok’s statement carries no formal legal relevance, its visibility added an extra layer of complexity to the public narrative, suggesting that even proprietary AI systems can, intentionally or not, influence public perception during contentious disputes between their own creators and competitors.

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