Elon Musk threatened to sue Apple on Monday for not including his social platform X or artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok on the App Store’s list of recommended apps.
“Hey @Apple App Store, 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?” Musk wrote on X. “Are you playing politics? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know.”
Several hours later, he escalated the dispute, suggesting xAI would take “immediate legal action” against the iPhone maker. The tech billionaire’s AI firm xAI acquired X for $45 billion in March.
“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 added.
A “community note” attached to his own post noted DeepSeek reached the top spot on Apple’s App Store in January. The No. 1 spot is currently held by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Musk has long had a contentious relationship with OpenAI, which he helped found in 2015. Since his departure, the tech mogul has sued the AI firm over its close partnership with Microsoft and its push to transform into a for-profit company.
His chatbot Grok, which currently sits in the fifth spot in Apple’s App Store, was briefly suspended from Musk’s own social platform Monday. The AI chatbot said in response to a query that the reason for its suspension remains unclear.
However, it also noted that “Grok itself claimed in now-deleted posts that the suspension was due to comments it made accusing Israel and the US of committing genocide in Gaza, citing sources like ICJ [International Court of Justice] rulings, UN reports, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem.”
“These posts were flagged for violating X’s hateful conduct rules,” it added.
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