FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk is seen with a bruised eye that Musk claimed he received at the hands of his son, X Æ A-12, as he attends a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
(Reuters) -Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday his artificial intelligence startup xAI would take legal action against Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of breaching antitrust regulations in managing App Store rankings.
"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," Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.
Apple has a partnership with OpenAI that integrates ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads and Macs.
Musk did not provide evidence to support his claim. Apple, OpenAI, and xAI did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Musk on Monday.
"This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like," he said on X.
OpenAI's ChatGPT currently holds the top spot in the App Store's "Top Free Apps" section in the U.S., while xAI's Grok ranks fifth.
"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? Are you playing politics?," Musk said in an earlier post on Monday.
Users on X - through the community notes feature - have pointed out that a few apps besides OpenAI have taken the top spot on the App Store this year.
Chinese AI app DeepSeek reached the No.1 spot on the platform in January, while in July, Perplexity took first place in India's App Store - both occurring after the OpenAI and Apple partnership struck last year.
Musk's comments come as regulators and rivals intensify scrutiny of Apple's control over its App Store.
Earlier this year, Apple was ordered to pay a fine of 500 million euros ($581.15 million) by the EU antitrust enforcer, which said the company's restrictions prevented developers from steering users outside the App Store.
($1 = 0.8604 euros)
(Reporting by Surbhi Misra, Shubham Kalia and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Kate Mayberry and Devika Syamnath)
