Online Reporter
Elon Musk accused Apple and OpenAI in a lawsuit of unfairly favouring the artificial intelligence company across iPhones and thwarting competition for other chatbot makers.
Musk’s X and xAI seek billions of dollars in damages in the suit filed Monday in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, arguing that Apple’s decision to integrate OpenAI into the iPhone’s operating system inhibits rivalry and innovation within the AI industry and harms consumers by depriving them of choice.
The billionaire founder of xAI Holdings, which now houses the Grok AI team and X social network, said Apple makes it impossible for anyone other than OpenAI’s ChatGPT to reach the top of the App Store charts, a sought-after global spotlight for app developers.
The case sets up a high-stakes court showdown between the richest person on the planet and one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Apple and OpenAI — whose ChatGPT service is the most-downloaded free iPhone app in the US — have a partnership around AI built into the latest iPhones. Musk, 54, has a long-running feud with OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman, which dates back to disagreements that led to their split after the two founded OpenAI together a decade ago.
Apple and OpenAI’s “exclusive arrangement has made ChatGPT the only generative AI chatbot integrated into the iPhone,” lawyers for Musk’s companies said in the lawsuit, and “have locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing.”
“This latest filing is consistent with Mr Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Apple has tangled with regulators around the world in recent years over claims that its app store has illegally squelched competition in the marketplace for mobile applications used on smartphones. The iPhone maker also has been engaged in a five-year legal fight with Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. over the App Store’s dominance of the smartphone software market. — Bloomberg
