Elon Musk is in a new fight with iPhone maker Apple over his artificial intelligence product xAI, as he revealed plans to take “immediate legal action” for allegedly manipulating its Apple Store rankings in favor of rival AI apps.
The tech mogul went to X to post his frustrations with the American tech company, claiming that Apple’s new rankings were a result of “playing politics” as neither X nor xAI’s Grok chatbot was listed on the recommended iOS apps sections.
“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation,” Musk said.
“Why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your ‘Must Have’ section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?” he added.
While the claims sparked a lot of conversation as expected, Musk never went ahead to provide any evidence for these claims. However, Apple seemed to respond promptly to the claims through a spokesperson stating that the App Store is “designed to be fair and free of bias.”
“We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria,” a spokesperson said in an email.
“Our goal is to offer safe discovery for users and valuable opportunities for developers, collaborating with many to increase app visibility in rapidly evolving categories,” Apple stated via statement to Bloomberg.
As it stands, ChatGPT still ranks as the top free AI app for iOS users, with Grok ranking almost five places below that. The only app that seemed to have brought some level of competition was DeepSeek AI, which took top spot in January this year, but only for a very brief time.
The claims from Elon Musk have been described as ironic when you consider allegations against him regarding the alterations he has made to his free X app since acquiring it in 2022.
Accusations of him manipulating the platform’s algorithm to boost his posts and other political posts during his short stint in American politics since the 2024 U.S. elections have been flying about since last year.
The claims also come at a time when Elon Musk has expressed a clear indifference to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, threatening its CEO, Sam Altman, with lawsuits and even offering $97.4 billion to acquire the company.
So, it’s not clear whether this is a direct hit to Apple or a passive-aggressive hit at the company that he was once a part of.
