Elon Musk has taken his fight against Apple and OpenAI to court, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday that accuses the companies of colluding to establish and entrench monopolies in the rapidly growing AI chatbot market. The legal move comes just weeks after Musk accused Apple of hypocrisy for consistently featuring OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the App Store while his own chatbot, Grok, has been effectively blacklisted.

Filed on behalf of Musk’s X and xAI companies, the lawsuit goes beyond complaints about App Store rankings. It alleges an exclusive deal between Apple and OpenAI that provides ChatGPT with unprecedented access to iPhone features while also blocking competitors from reaching Apple’s user base. Musk’s lawsuit claims the arrangement violates antitrust and unfair competition laws, posing an existential threat to his long-promised vision of building an “everything app” on Twitter’s foundation after he bought it in 2022.

The lawsuit, whose complaint was seen by Protocol, says Apple integrated ChatGPT into iOS as the default chatbot for Siri, Apple’s Writing Tools, and other functions. The deal gives OpenAI exclusive access to billions of iPhone user prompts. Chatbots are trained and improved by feeding them data like user prompts, so X argues this data is critical to scaling a chatbot, and rivals like Grok cannot compete without it. The filing estimates OpenAI already controls at least 80 percent of the chatbot market, and with Apple integration, could cement its lead indefinitely.

“Generative AI chatbots would vigorously compete with one another in a fair market. Instead, defendants’ anticompetitive conduct has handed a substantial portion of the market to ChatGPT,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit further argues that Apple is motivated by fears that a successful rival “super app” could one day make iPhones less essential, as WeChat in China has become an all-in-one replacement for many standalone smartphone functions. The complaint even cites Apple executive Eddy Cue allegedly expressing concerns that advances in AI could “destroy Apple’s smartphone business.” Musk’s filing argues the deal is a desperate move by Apple to preserve its iPhone monopoly, while also helping OpenAI build an unbeatable lead in generative AI.

Exclusive Access and Growing Market Power

Apple’s deal with OpenAI, the complaint compares to a search engine deal the company has had with Google for years, which U.S. regulators have long argued effectively entrenched Google’s monopoly. Musk alleges Apple rejected repeated xAI attempts to integrate Grok with iOS, and even refused requests to feature Grok in the App Store, including during its new “Imagine” feature launch last month. Beyond that, the filing claims Apple manipulated App Store rankings and delayed Grok updates to stifle competition.

Musk says the future of not just Grok, but AI-driven platforms is at stake. The lawsuit notes Siri alone handled 1.5 billion user requests per day globally in 2024, a volume greater than the number of prompts for all generative AI chatbots that year. If OpenAI alone receives those prompts, it effectively controls up to 55 percent of all potential chatbot interactions, the X filing argues.

The lawsuit also suggests the impact on consumers could be significant. Apple customers, it warns, may face fewer choices and less capable chatbots, while also paying monopoly prices for iPhones. OpenAI could also raise subscription prices with its dominant position. Plans to double its “plus” subscription over the next four years could be infeasible without marketwide pricing power, the lawsuit suggests.

Musk also highlights the chilling effect on investment, saying if Apple continues to “press its thumb firmly on the scale” for ChatGPT, investors will see little value in backing rivals, depriving them of the resources they need to grow. This, X argues, could lead to talent loss as Big Tech firms scoop up developers from underfunded startups.

The lawsuit further questions the financial logic of the Apple-OpenAI deal. According to the X filing, OpenAI provided ChatGPT to Apple for free, effectively paying to be integrated with the iPhone, while Apple expects to see no near-term profit. The filing suggests both companies view the exclusivity as more valuable than any potential direct revenue, as it broadly blocks rivals and entrenches their market control.

“By making the deal exclusive, Apple sacrificed the profits it would have earned by integrating multiple chatbots,” the complaint argues. “The true motive was Apple and OpenAI’s shared goal of blocking competition.”

For Musk, the potential consequences could be existential. He warns that if relief is not granted, Grok may never be able to compete on a level playing field, leaving X less valuable to users and investors. “Because Grok’s functionality is a key feature of the X app, the X app is more attractive the better Grok performs,” the filing states. “Defendants’ conduct makes Grok less able to compete with ChatGPT, leading to fewer customers, less revenue, and ultimately a depressed enterprise value for X.”

Musk’s companies are seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as a permanent injunction to block Apple’s exclusive integration of ChatGPT. OpenAI, in a statement to Ars Technica, dismissed the filing as part of Musk’s “ongoing pattern of harassment.” Apple declined to comment.

A ruling on whether a court agrees with Musk that Apple and OpenAI have illegally entrenched their market monopolies could determine not only the fate of Grok but also how competitive the next chapter of AI innovation will be.