Elon Musk Threatens Apple Over Grok AI Chatbot App Rankings

Vincent Feuray | Afp | Getty Images

Elon Musk on Monday threatened Apple with legal action over alleged antitrust violations related to the rankings of the Grok AI chatbot app, which is owned by his artificial intelligence startup xAI. “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. xAI will take immediate legal action,” Musk wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“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? Are you playing politics?” Musk said in another post.

Last year, Apple partnered with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop, and desktop products. Musk had previously stated that “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.”

It has been confirmed that ChatGPT was ranked No. 1 in the top free apps section of the American iOS store and was the only AI chatbot featured in Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” section.

Before his legal threats against Apple, Musk celebrated Grok surpassing Google as the fifth top free app on the App Store.

xAI recently released Grok 4, and OpenAI announced GPT-5, its latest and most advanced large-scale AI model. This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.