Elon Musk has launched a legal attack against Apple and OpenAI, filing a lawsuit on Monday that claims the tech giant and AI company colluded to entrench monopolies in the rapidly growing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot market. Musk made the move just weeks after lashing out at Apple over the App Store’s consistent ranking of OpenAI’s ChatGPT ahead of his company’s competing Grok app.

Filed on behalf of Musk’s Twitter successor X and AI firm xAI, the lawsuit goes far beyond App Store rankings. It alleges that Apple and OpenAI have entered into an exclusive agreement to give ChatGPT deep integration into iPhone hardware and software, further locking out competition from reaching Apple’s 2 billion user market. Musk claims the partnership violates antitrust and unfair competition laws and could derail his long-stated vision of building an “everything app” built on Twitter’s foundation, which he purchased in 2022.

Apple has integrated ChatGPT into iOS as the default chatbot in Siri, Apple’s Writing Tools, and other functions, the lawsuit states, and it has given OpenAI exclusive access to the billions of user prompts that Siri generates each day. The data is critical to the company’s ability to train and improve its chatbot model, X says, and Apple is barring competitors like Grok from access to those users and data to scale their own models.

The deal effectively hands OpenAI control of at least 80 percent of the chatbot market, Musk alleges, and with Apple’s full integration, could cement that lead for the foreseeable future.

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

Motivations and Market Ramifications

X argues Apple is motivated by fear that a successful super app rival could one day make iPhones less essential in the way WeChat has in China, where it is used as an all-in-one replacement for standalone apps and functions across messaging, payments, shopping, and more. The complaint cites Apple executive Eddy Cue allegedly telling an employee at an all-hands meeting that the tech company is concerned that AI advances could “destroy Apple’s smartphone business.” Musk’s filing paints Apple’s actions as a panicked attempt to defend its iPhone monopoly, while also helping OpenAI build an unbeatable generative AI lead.

Exclusive and Growing Market Share

Apple’s move is analogous to its longtime search engine partnership with Google, which U.S. regulators have long alleged helped entrench Google’s monopoly, according to the complaint. Musk alleges Apple rejected repeated requests from xAI to integrate Grok into iOS, and even declined to feature Grok in the App Store, including at the launch of its new “Imagine” capability. The filing also claims Apple manipulated App Store rankings and delayed Grok updates, part of an effort to keep rivals at bay.

Musk’s filing frames the issue as far broader than just Grok’s ability to compete, however, warning that the case could determine the very future of AI-driven apps. The lawsuit notes that Siri already handled 1.5 billion user requests daily across the globe in 2024 alone, dwarfing the total volume of prompts for all generative AI chatbots combined for the entire year. OpenAI has all of those daily user prompts to itself, effectively owning up to 55 percent of all possible chatbot interactions, X argues.

The deal could have a range of impacts for consumers, the lawsuit warns. Apple customers may find their options stunted and less capable chatbots as competition is undercut, while continuing to pay monopoly prices for iPhones. OpenAI, meanwhile, could use its market power to further jack up subscription prices, which the company has said will double over the next four years for the premium “plus” subscription. “That plan would be unfeasible unless OpenAI has power over marketwide prices,” the lawsuit argues.

If Apple has the market’s leading super app “fighting off with its thumb firmly on the scale,” X also warns that the innovation funding that investors would have poured into potential rivals could instead evaporate, leading to a lack of resources needed to compete. Talent may similarly dry up as big tech firms poach top engineers and developers from underfunded startups.

The lawsuit notes Apple is getting access to ChatGPT for free, and will see no near-term profit on the deal, while OpenAI itself is paying for the integration through the billions it has raised to date. The benefits are not measured in direct payments to Apple, X argues, but instead in a broad foreclosure of the market to rivals.

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

Stakes, Damage, and Relief Sought

The stakes for Musk could not be higher, with the lawsuit warning the company’s chatbot has little hope of competing without relief. Musk further warns that Grok’s inability to fairly compete will make the X app less attractive to potential users and investors, harming its enterprise value.

“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 is seeking billions in damages, as well as a permanent injunction against Apple’s exclusive integration of ChatGPT. In response to Ars Technica, an OpenAI spokesperson characterized the lawsuit as part of a pattern of “harassment” from Musk. Apple declined to comment.

A court’s determination of whether Musk is right that Apple and OpenAI have acted to illegally entrench monopolies could decide the future of not just Grok, but also how competitive AI innovation will be in the years to come.