FILE PHOTO: View of an Apple logo at an Apple store in Paris, France, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Abdul Saboor/File Photo
(Reuters) -Apple's deal with ChatGPT owner OpenAI is not "exclusive" and does not harm competition, Apple's lawyers said as they asked a U.S. judge on Tuesday to dismiss a case filed by billionaire Elon Musk's OpenAI rival xAI.
Musk's xAI is seeking billions of dollars in damages, saying Apple would have no reason to more prominently feature the X app and the Grok app in its App Store because of the "exclusive" deal with OpenAI.
Under a deal announced in June 2024, Apple has integrated ChatGPT into its operating system for iPhones, iPads and Macs. Musk owns both X and xAI, which owns the Grok chatbot.
Apple and OpenAI have "locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing," the lawsuit filed by xAI in August claimed.
"Apple and OpenAI's agreement is expressly not exclusive, and it is public and widely known that Apple intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots," lawyers for Apple said.
In a separate filing, lawyers for OpenAI accused Musk of waging "a campaign of lawfare" against OpenAI and ChatGPT, referring to earlier suits that Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has filed against the company. They too asked the judge to dismiss the case.
Musk's xAI "has not alleged any non-speculative harm rising directly out of ChatGPT’s integration as an option for certain features on certain iPhones — and certainly not the species of unlawful, anticompetitive harm targeted by antitrust law," lawyers for OpenAI wrote.
Musk is separately suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in federal court in California to stop its conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit business. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit.
xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours on Apple and OpenAI seeking dismissal of the suit.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Elaine Hardcastle)
