Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Know-how convention on the Porte de Versailles exhibition heart in Paris on June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Two of Elon Musk’s firms sued Apple and OpenAI on Monday, accusing the pair of an “anticompetitive scheme” to thwart synthetic intelligence rivals.
The lawsuit, filed by Musk’s AI startup xAI and his social media platform X, alleges Apple and OpenAI have “colluded” to keep up monopolies within the smartphone and generative AI markets.
It additionally accuses Apple of deprioritizing so-called “tremendous apps” and generative AI chatbot rivals, comparable to xAI’s Grok, in its App Retailer rankings, whereas favoring OpenAI by integrating its ChatGPT chatbot into Apple merchandise.
“In a determined bid to guard its smartphone monopoly, Apple has joined forces with the corporate that the majority advantages from inhibiting competitors and innovation in AI: OpenAI, a monopolist available in the market for generative AI chatbots,” in accordance with the grievance, which was filed in U.S. District Court docket for the Northern District of Texas.
Musk earlier this month threatened to sue Apple for “an unequivocal antitrust violation,” saying in a publish on X that the corporate “is behaving in a fashion that makes it unimaginable for any AI firm apart from OpenAI to succeed in #1 within the App Retailer.”
OpenAI declined to remark. Representatives from Apple did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Musk’s publish on X: “This can be a exceptional declare given what I’ve heard alleged that Elon does to control X to learn himself and his personal firms and hurt his rivals and folks he does not like.”
An Apple spokesperson beforehand mentioned its App Retailer was designed to be “truthful and freed from bias,” and that the corporate options “1000’s of apps” utilizing a wide range of indicators.
Apple final 12 months partnered with OpenAI to combine ChatGPT into iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop computer and desktop merchandise.
A number of customers replied to Musk’s publish on X through its Neighborhood Notes function saying that rival chatbot apps comparable to DeepSeek and Perplexity had been ranked No. 1 on the App Retailer after Apple and OpenAI introduced their partnership.
The lawsuit is the newest twist in an ongoing conflict between Musk and Altman. Musk co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman in 2015, earlier than leaving the startup in 2018 because of disagreements over OpenAI’s path.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman final 12 months, accusing them of breach of contract by placing business pursuits forward of its authentic mission to develop AI “for the good thing about humanity broadly.”
