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Tech mogul Elon Musk is escalating his feud with Apple, threatening legal action over what he claims are anticompetitive practices in the App Store. The Tesla and X owner, who is finding support from a coalition of technology companies, alleges that Apple is giving preferential treatment to OpenAI’s ChatGPT while suppressing his own products, including the social media platform X and the Grok AI chatbot.
Musk announced on X that his AI company, xAI, will file an “immediate legal action” against Apple, calling the situation “unequivocal antitrust.” He specifically accused the company of excluding both X and Grok from its “Must Have” app section, despite their high rankings, while prominently featuring ChatGPT in several curated lists. This comes after Apple integrated ChatGPT into its “Apple Intelligence” features in 2024.
Musk's stance has been publicly endorsed by the Coalition for a Competitive Mobile Experience (CCME), an industry group that includes major players like Meta, Spotify, and Garmin. Led by antitrust veteran Brandon Kressin, the coalition contends that Apple's App Store rules unfairly disadvantage third-party developers. In a statement on X, the CCME welcomed Musk's involvement, viewing it as a significant step in a larger effort to challenge Apple's control over app distribution.
The CCME’s website states that the group advocates for a more open and competitive mobile ecosystem, and Bloomberg reports that the coalition has long criticized Apple for favoring its own services and imposing “harmful restrictions” on independent developers. Apple, for its part, maintains on its website that the App Store is “highly curated,” with rankings and recommendations determined through human and automated review processes.
Musk’s latest legal threat against Apple adds to a growing list of lawsuits, including a separate legal battle with OpenAI, which he co-founded, over its move to a for-profit model.