AI War Escalates as Elon Musk Accuses Apple of App Store Bias Toward ChatGPT

The bitter feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI reignited this week after the Tesla and SpaceX boss accused Apple of unfairly boosting ChatGPT’s position in its App Store rankings a claim he says amounts to an “unequivocal antitrust violation.”

“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X on Monday, vowing that his AI startup, xAI, would take “immediate legal action.” He offered no evidence to back the allegation.

X users were quick to challenge Musk’s claim, noting that China’s DeepSeek AI topped the App Store earlier this year and Perplexity AI recently claimed the number-one spot in India. Both companies compete directly with OpenAI and xAI.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, responding on X, called Musk’s accusation “remarkable” and accused him of manipulating X’s algorithm “to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.” Musk fired back, calling Altman a “liar,” prompting the OpenAI boss to dare him to sign a sworn legal statement denying he had ever used X’s algorithm to disadvantage rivals.

The exchange came days after both companies rolled out major upgrades to their AI assistants ChatGPT-5 for OpenAI and a new version of Grok for xAI. As of Tuesday, ChatGPT ranked as the top free iPhone app, with Grok in fifth place. Apple has yet to comment on the dispute.

App Store rankings are influenced by factors such as downloads, reviews, and user engagement. Apple and OpenAI have had a public partnership since June 2024, aimed at integrating ChatGPT features into iPhones and other devices.

The clash is the latest flashpoint in a long-running rivalry. Musk co-founded OpenAI but left before its breakthrough success in 2022, later accusing it of betraying its founding mission. In April, OpenAI filed counterclaims in US federal court, alleging Musk had embarked on a “relentless campaign” to undermine the organisation and build a competing AI platform “not for humanity but for Elon Musk.” Musk launched xAI in 2023 to challenge OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and other tech giants pouring billions into generative AI.

Chinese startup DeepSeek has also disrupted the market this year with a high-performance model designed to run on less costly chips, further intensifying the global AI arms race.