Apple Faces Lawsuit from Elon Musk, Citing Unnamed Allegations
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has announced his intention to sue Apple over claims that the tech giant's App Store practices unfairly favor OpenAI's AI applications, specifically the ChatGPT app, to the detriment of competing AI products.
Musk's AI company, xAI, launched the Grok chatbot, which currently ranks lower in the App Store compared to ChatGPT. Musk alleges that Apple's high-profile partnership with OpenAI, which integrates ChatGPT deeply into Apple devices, has led to improper favoritism in the App Store rankings.
The billionaire entrepreneur described Apple's behavior as putting "their whole body" on the scale, indicating a strong bias in the App Store rankings. He also criticized Apple for not promoting his other app, X (formerly Twitter), despite it being a leading news app worldwide, viewing this as Apple playing politics and interfering in competition.
OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, responded skeptically to Musk's claims, highlighting Musk's own alleged manipulations of X to benefit himself and harm competitors, and emphasizing his focus on product development rather than the alleged unfair practices.
This lawsuit threat is not the first legal challenge for Apple regarding the App Store. In the same month, the European Commission fined Apple €570 million for infringing digital competition law by preventing app developers from directing users to more economical options outside the App Store.
The legal issues between Musk and Apple seem to be escalating, following a federal judge's ruling in April that Apple had violated a court order to reform its App Store for greater competition. Apple has not yet commented on Musk's accusations.
The App Store's reform is a topic of ongoing debate due to concerns about competition and monopolistic practices. This lawsuit against Apple is another legal challenge for the App Store, following the resolution in April of the lawsuit filed by Epic Games accusing Apple of monopolizing the distribution of applications for iOS.
The relationship between Musk and OpenAI is not good and could be contributing to the current frictions. Musk has pointed out that the App Store refuses to include X or Grok in its 'Essentials' section, and he argues that Apple's actions constitute a clear violation of antitrust norms.
[1] The Verge
[2] TechCrunch
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