Elon Musk has threatened to sue Apple for not featuring X and his AI chatbot Grok in the App Store’s “Must Have” section despite their high rankings. Musk accused Apple of antitrust violations, claiming it favours OpenAI. The dispute comes amid Apple’s history of competition-related fines in the EU and legal challenges in the US.
Elon Musk. Pic/File pic
Amid the rising tensions in the global business, two business giants in the United States of America are reportedly taking each other head-to-head. On Tuesday, billionaire and owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X, Elon Musk expressed that he plans to sue Apple for not featuring X and its Grok artificial intelligence chatbot app in its top recommended apps in its App Store.
While posting on his X account and threatening Apple, Elon Musk stated on X that, "Hey Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your 'Must Have' section when X is the number 1 news app in the world and Grok is number 5 among all apps? Are you playing politics? What gives? Enquiring minds want to know.”
As reported by AP News, the Grok application is owned by US billionaire Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI.
However, Elon Musk went on to say that “Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach number 1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. xAI will take immediate legal action.”
While Elon Musk didn’t bother to give further details on the issue, the speculation and threats are yet to be figured out.
Even after Elon Musk’s post on X, there was no immediate comment from Apple, which has faced various allegations of antitrust violations in recent years.
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?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2025
Are you playing politics? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know. https://t.co/3wenLZGtwG
A federal judge recently found that Apple violated a court injunction in an antitrust case filed by Fortnite maker Epic Games.
Regulators of the 27-nation European Union fined Apple 500 million euros in April for breaking competition rules by preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store.
Last year, the European Union had also fined the US tech giant Apple nearly USD 2 billion for unfairly favouring its own music streaming service by forbidding rivals like Spotify from telling users how they could pay for cheaper subscriptions outside of iPhone apps.
During the early hours of Tuesday in the United States, the top app in Apple's App Store was TikTok, followed by Tinder, Duolingo, YouTube and Bumble. However, OpenAI's ChatGPT was ranked 7th on the App Store.
(With inputs from AP)
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