Billionaire Elon Musk has escalated his dispute with Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of skewing its App Store to prefer OpenAI’s ChatGPT over rival AI products and companies, together with his chatbot Grok and the X app.
“Why fabricate you refuse to position both 𝕏 or Grok for your ‘Must Accept as true with’ part when 𝕏 is the #1 facts app on the planet and Grok is #5 among all apps?” Musk tweeted Monday on his social media platform.
He adopted with a sharper jab: “Are you playing politics? What provides? Inquiring minds prefer to grab.”
Hi there @Apple App Store, why fabricate you refuse to position both 𝕏 or Grok for your “Must Accept as true with” part when 𝕏 is the #1 facts app on the planet and Grok is #5 among all apps?
Are you playing politics? What provides? Inquiring minds prefer to grab. https://t.co/3wenLZGtwG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2025
Curation or competition?
Musk’s rhetoric reinforces his broader claim that Apple’s App Store curation tilts the playing discipline toward appreciated companions love OpenAI, sidelining opponents even when their apps notorious extremely.
He has framed the diagram as section of a bigger antitrust fight, aligning his grievances with ongoing U.S. and EU investigations into Apple’s dominance over app distribution.
Any correct switch by Musk would add every other high-profile diagram to Apple’s industry mannequin, doubtlessly widening the scope of scrutiny on how it manages visibility and win admission to, as successfully as presumably reopen how Apple had dealt with crypto payments in the previous for its App Store.
Factual specialists enlighten the case could presumably hinge on the save the line is drawn between Apple’s correct to curate its marketplace and conduct that unlawfully distorts competition.
The secret’s with “distinguishing between legitimate editorial curation (which platforms in total accept as true with the correct to exercise) and anti-aggressive conduct that harms the aggressive direction of,” Andrew Rossow, a public affairs attorney and CEO of AR Media Consulting, suggested Decrypt.
“Courts would likely look factors love the consistency of curation policies, whether choices again legitimate industry functions, and the overall affect on competition as adverse to particular person opponents,” Rossow defined.
Rossow smartly-known that Musk’s case differs in focusing on curation bias as adverse to payment techniques, so the precedent isn’t straight controlling.
“Antitrust legislation protects competition, no longer particular person opponents,” he mentioned, adding that Musk would prefer to indicate xAI’s efficiency points stem from Apple’s conduct as adverse to factors love product quality or advertising and marketing effectiveness.
Others inquire whether platform adjust is being ancient to shape competition, asserting the diagram could presumably decide which merchandise earn or lose market part.
“Here is pure censorship. If App Store curation is influenced by favoritism, it is going to distort competition in the AI sector by limiting visibility for doubtlessly superior merchandise,” Himanshu Tyagi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science and co-founding father of AI firm Sentient, suggested Decrypt.
Accrued, some warn that platform favoritism can steer visitors and provides firms facts advantages, shaping who succeeds in the AI sector.
“The plateau in colossal language mannequin capabilities makes a moat mighty more difficult to earn,” Jesse Glass, lead AI researcher at DecideAI, suggested Decrypt. “Choices love this one from Apple will play an an increasing number of colossal role.”
