Musk filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI on Monday, alleging the two companies have conspired to entrench their monopolies in the nascent AI chatbot market. The suit comes just weeks after Musk publicly lambasted Apple over its consistent promotion of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the App Store while leaving his own chatbot, Grok, off the “Must Have” list.

The new legal complaint, filed on behalf of Musk’s companies X and xAI, goes much further than griping about App Store rankings, however. It claims that Apple and OpenAI have entered into an “exclusive deal” that not only provides ChatGPT with unprecedented access to iPhone features but also shuts out competitors from reaching Apple’s hundreds of millions of users. Musk is asking a court to intervene, arguing the arrangement is in violation of antitrust and unfair competition laws, and threatens to derail Musk’s long-promised plans to build an “everything app” atop Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion in 2022.

Per the complaint, Apple integrated ChatGPT into iOS as the default chatbot across Siri, Apple’s Writing Tools, and other features, giving OpenAI “exclusive access” to billions of resulting user prompts. That data is valuable for training and improving chatbot models, X argues, and access to it is essential to any firm’s ability to scale. According to X, OpenAI already controls at least 80 percent of the chatbot market, and the Apple integration could lock its lead in place indefinitely.

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

X alleges that Apple is motivated by a fear that a successful rival super app could make iPhones less essential. As WeChat in China has become a multipurpose replacement for many smartphone features, the worry goes, so too could xAI’s app someday. The complaint even cites Apple executive Eddy Cue allegedly saying Apple’s priority is ensuring AI doesn’t “destroy Apple’s smartphone business.” In Musk’s filing, the deal is painted as a desperate attempt by a waning Apple to preserve its iPhone monopoly, while also helping OpenAI build an insurmountable lead in generative AI.

Exclusive Access and Growing Market Power

The complaint also compares the deal to Apple’s longstanding search engine agreement with Google, which U.S. regulators have long argued entrenched Google’s monopoly. Musk alleges that Apple rejected repeated overtures by xAI to reach an equivalent integration with iOS, and even declined requests to feature Grok prominently in the App Store, including during its launch of the “Imagine” feature in recent weeks. Beyond that, the filing also claims Apple has manipulated App Store rankings and delayed Grok updates to stifle competition.

At stake, Musk argues, is not just Grok’s future ability to compete but the very future of AI-driven chatbot platforms. The lawsuit notes that Siri processed 1.5 billion user requests per day across the globe in 2024, a volume of prompts greater than the combined total for all generative AI chatbots in the entire year. If all of those prompts end up with OpenAI, it effectively controls up to 55 percent of all potential chatbot interactions, X argues.

The filing suggests that it could have major consequences for consumers. Apple customers, the suit warns, may be left with fewer options and face a less capable product, while also paying monopoly prices for iPhones. OpenAI, for its part, could use its market power to raise subscription prices, which X claims it has plans to double over the next four years. “That plan would be unfeasible unless OpenAI has power over marketwide prices,” the lawsuit alleges.

The suit also highlights the chilling effect the arrangement has on investment. If Apple continues to “press its thumb firmly on the scale” in ChatGPT’s favor, investors may see little reason to back rivals, depriving them of the resources they need to grow. This, in turn, could lead to a loss of talent, as the chatbot arms of Big Tech firms are free to scoop up developers from startups who have been starved of funding.

Musk’s filing also calls into question the financial logic of the Apple-OpenAI deal. According to X, OpenAI provided ChatGPT to Apple for free, while also paying to develop and maintain the integration. For its part, Apple is not expecting any profit from the arrangement for “years, if ever,” and the lawsuit suggests both companies view the deal’s exclusivity as more valuable than any direct revenue, because it broadly blocks rivals.

“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.”

Musk has a lot at stake. He warns that if the court doesn’t intervene, Grok may never be able to fairly compete against a super-charged ChatGPT backed by Apple, making X far less attractive to both 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, responding to Ars Technica, called the lawsuit “part of Elon’s ongoing pattern of harassment” against Apple. Apple declined to comment.

Whether a court agrees with Musk that Apple and OpenAI have illegally worked to entrench their monopolies could determine not just the fate of Grok, but also how competitive the next chapter of AI innovation is.