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Elon Musk has accused Apple of breaking antitrust rules and threatened to sue the US tech company over how his X social media and Grok artificial intelligence tool are ranked in the iPhone maker’s influential App Store.
The tech billionaire accused Apple of making it “impossible” for any AI company besides the Sam Altman-led OpenAI to reach the top ranking in its App Store, and called it “an unequivocal antitrust violation”.
He said his xAI business, which develops Grok and acquired X in March, “will take immediate legal action”.
In a series of posts on X late on Monday, he said Apple’s App Store “refuse to put either X or Grok in your ‘Must Have’ section”.
The most downloaded free app on the App Store is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, while Grok is ranked sixth.
Altman responded to Musk’s claim that Apple favoured OpenAI in his own social media posts. In a message posted on X, he said: “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies.”
Musk’s broadside marked his latest public conflict, following high-profile feuds with both Altman and US President Donald Trump.
His relationship with Trump imploded in June when the two traded social media insults after Musk criticised the president’s signature tax and spending bill.
Musk has also had a long-running feud with Altman over each other’s businesses, with both men regularly exchanging barbs over social media. Musk co-founded OpenAI but left in 2018.
The attack on Apple comes as the US’s AI companies face increasing scrutiny over the return for the billions of dollars of investment ploughed into the industry in recent years.
In recent months both Grok and ChatGPT have launched the latest versions of their large language models, but some early users have been disappointed at the scale of the upgrades.
Apple is also facing separate pressure over access by outside companies to its App Store.
Earlier this year it was fined €500mn by the EU for antitrust violations and threatened with escalating levies, after Brussels ruled the US group had prevented app developers from sending consumers to offers outside its platform.
Apple has been contacted for comment.