is a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human behavior. She joined The Verge in 2014 as science editor. Previously, she was a reporter at Bloomberg.
Elon Musk is calling in another return on his investment in American politics: he’s threatening Apple with a lawsuit because neither X nor xAI’s Grok have been recommended on the iOS App Store. How serious this threat is — well, that’s hard to say, as it was posted between Grok-generated waifus.
“Hey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your ‘Must Have’ section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?,” he whined, in a post which was briefly pinned to his profile.
Musk, the CEO of xAI and one of God’s sorest winners, isn’t content with how well his apps are doing in the store. He wants an Apple endorsement, too. If you are unfamiliar with the App Store, first of all, congratulations. But second, there are portions of it that are editorially curated, with the store recommending certain apps as “essentials,” as well as “editors’ choice.” Musk’s apps still appear on the charts — they just aren’t getting boosted by Apple itself on the front page of the iOS App Store.
This is pretty brazen gangster behavior
Apple is, in some sense, splash damage in Musk’s ongoing beef with OpenAI. “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,” Musk said in another post.
It’s also not the first time Musk has used “antitrust” as an excuse to tie a perceived nemesis up in the court system. As part of the aforementioned OpenAI beef, Musk has claimed that OpenAI and Microsoft have attempted to “monopolize the generative AI market” by using exclusivity agreements with investors when raising capital, refusing to let xAI license OpenAI’s tech because of the Microsoft exclusivity agreement, and “lock[ing] down” AI talent.
This is pretty brazen gangster behavior — gangster tech regulation, to be more precise. Sure, Musk and Trump aren’t as close as they once were, but Musk didn’t pay all that money to get Trump elected for nothing. If Musk does file suit, and does so in a friendly court — perhaps that of Tesla shareholder Reed O’Connor, the judge in the Northern District of Texas — the legal pressure could lead to some concessions. It does seem that barely disguised extortion has been fashionable lately among the right wing.
Musk’s apps seem to fly in the face of App Store guidelines
In response to Musk’s provocation, Apple said that the App Store is “designed to be fair and free of bias … we feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria,” an Apple spokesperson, who wasn’t named, told Bloomberg.
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