Musk firms sue Apple and OpenAI, alleging they hurt competition
11 hours ago Share Save Natalie Sherman BBC News Share Save
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Two Elon Musk-backed businesses have officially sued Apple and OpenAI, accusing them of joining forces illegally to block threats from potential competitors. The lawsuit, filed in the US by X and xAI, takes aim at Apple's decision to integrate OpenAI's chatbot into the operating systems of its smartphones, an exclusive arrangement that it says violated competition law. The filing makes good on a threat Musk had lobbed against the two tech giants earlier this month, when he alleged that Apple favoured OpenAI in its app store rankings. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while OpenAI said the filing was "consistent with Mr Musk's ongoing pattern of harassment".
Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman founded OpenAI together in 2015. But the two have since become bitter rivals, with Mr Musk accusing Mr Altman of leading OpenAI too far from its founding in the name of public good. Their fights have intensified as Musk has launched his own AI firms, including xAI and Grok, a chatbot alternative. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, Musk's firms claim "there is no valid business reason for the Apple-OpenAI deal to be exclusive" - arguing that the 2024 arrangement has made it harder to compete and gave OpenAI access to the prompts and activity of millions of Apple customers. It says the deal also gave the ChatGPT app an edge in the App store, "boosting its downloads relative to other generative AI chatbots". "The Apple-OpenAI arrangement has foreclosed competition among generative AI chatbots, deprived competing generative AI chatbots of scale, and reduced quality and innovation," the two companies said in the lawsuit. "All of these impacts have, in turn, helped OpenAI and Apple maintain their monopolies."