Why Elon Musk Sued Apple and OpenAI: “Once friends, now foes!”

Elon Musk has sued Apple and OpenAI, but not many know that OpenAI was founded by both Musk & Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI) together in 2015; later, Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board as Tesla was developing its own AI for self-driving cars.

Highlights

Musk’s xAI and X Corp have lodged a 61-page antitrust complaint against Apple and OpenAI in the Texas Federal Court—Elon’s tweet.

Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.

xAI will take immediate legal action.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025

The complaint also criticizes OpenAI’s shift towards becoming a profit-driven firm and straying from its original nonprofit mission of developing safe artificial intelligence for the benefit of people.

The lawsuit doesn’t mention it, but reportedly, OpenAI has also recruited former Apple designer Jonny Ivy to develop a potential AI-powered device that could potentially be a threat to Apple iPhones.

Why this lawsuit?

Elon Musk accused Apple of pushing ChatGPT in Apple stores, suppressing other AI apps & chatbots like Musk’s own GrokAI.
Apple and OpenAI deal gives an unfair advantage of data of Apple users, indeed, manipulating Apple Store ranking to favour ChatGPT.
Powerdynamics highlights Apple’s inefficiency in delivering its own AI services, fueling its reliance on OpenAI and, in return, benefiting ChatGPT to access Apple users’ data, which is inaccessible to other AIs.
OpenAI claims this as a persistent pattern of ‘harassment’ from Musk due to personal churns.

The core of the lawsuit revolves around Apple’s integration of OpenAI in its products, as Apple stepped in marginally late in the AI race, and its unfulfilled promise of serving users with its own uniquely developed artificial intelligence technology.

It also projects Musk’s attempts to put him in the center stage of the AI race, pushing his Grok AI and claiming it to be “24/7 at work.”