August 26, 2025 — International Desk
Elon Musk has opened a new front in Silicon Valley’s AI wars, filing an antitrust lawsuit in federal court in Texas that accuses Apple and OpenAI of tilting the playing field in favor of ChatGPT on the iPhone. The complaint—brought by Musk’s AI company xAI alongside his social platform X—argues Apple’s system‑level integration of ChatGPT and alleged App Store favoritism make it harder for rival assistants, including xAI’s Grok, to reach users on iOS. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and seeks an injunction plus damages of more than $1 billion. Houston ChronicleChron
What Musk is alleging
At the heart of the case is Apple’s 2024 move to let Siri and writing tools hand off certain requests to ChatGPT. Musk’s complaint frames that arrangement as effectively “exclusive,” claiming it funnels a massive stream of day‑to‑day questions to one provider, helping ChatGPT improve faster while starving competitors of scale. The filing also claims Apple’s editorial surfaces—like “Must‑Have Apps”—de‑prioritize X and Grok despite strong category rankings, which the plaintiffs say suppresses discovery and growth for alternatives. ChronFinancial Times
How Apple and OpenAI respond
OpenAI has dismissed the lawsuit as consistent with what it calls Musk’s “ongoing pattern of harassment.” Apple has not yet commented on the filing. Houston Chronicle
Apple’s public materials, however, stress that ChatGPT access inside “Apple Intelligence” is a user choice, not a locked default. On iPhone and Mac, Siri asks before sending a prompt to ChatGPT, and users can leave the extension off entirely—an important detail likely to feature in Apple’s defense that the integration is opt‑in rather than exclusionary. Apple Support+1
Why this fight matters
In AI, distribution often determines who wins. Musk’s lawyers argue that if one assistant gains privileged access to hundreds of millions of daily iPhone requests, its models can improve faster, reinforcing a lead through “data network effects.” Whether those effects result from illegal coordination—or from normal platform partnerships—will be central to the case. Major business outlets note the complaint echoes long‑running antitrust debates over defaults on mobile platforms, drawing comparisons to earlier battles over default search deals. Wall Street Journal
There’s also an App Store layer. Editorial placement and ranking are powerful levers; losing visibility can mean losing growth. Proving intentional bias in court is hard, but if the plaintiffs can produce internal data on rankings or placement decisions, a judge could scrutinize Apple’s curation more closely—especially amid wider regulatory attention on platform power. Chron
What to watch next
- Injunction bid: Expect a near‑term push for court orders limiting how iOS invokes ChatGPT at the system level pending trial. The bar for emergency relief is high; plaintiffs must show likely success on the merits and irreparable harm.
- Discovery over defaults: Emails, ranking logs, and partnership terms could become pivotal evidence clarifying whether Apple granted OpenAI any practical exclusivity—or whether the experience is truly neutral and opt‑in as Apple’s documentation suggests. Apple Support
- Broader ripple effects: However this case lands, it will shape how “AI defaults” are handled on mobile OSes. If courts constrain deep OS integrations, platforms may need to present users with clearer choice screens—or open similar hooks to multiple models on equal terms. Financial Times
The bottom line
This is less about one celebrity CEO sparring with a rival, and more about who controls the gateway to everyday AI. Apple says users remain in charge of whether Siri uses ChatGPT. Musk says that in practice, design choices and store curation nudge billions of prompts toward a single provider. The courts will now test those competing stories—and, by extension, set early rules for how AI gets distributed on the world’s most valuable devices. Houston ChronicleApple SupportWall Street Journal
Reporting based on court‑filing coverage and company materials current as of August 26, 2025. Houston ChronicleChronWall Street JournalFinancial TimesApple Support
