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Apple asks judge to dismiss absurd AI claim by Elon Musk

Apple has asked a judge to dismiss a patently absurd claim made by Elon Musk that the iPhone maker is legally obliged to strike a partnership with his xAI company.

Musk’s X Corp is seeking billions of dollars in damages from Apple, claiming that it illegally favors OpenAI’s ChatGPT

How it started

Things kicked off a few weeks ago when Musk claimed that Apple was favoring OpenAI in the App Store’s AI rankings.

Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any Al company besides OpenAl to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.

xAI followed this with a lawsuit which went even further, by claiming that it was an antitrust violation for Apple to partner with OpenAI without also partnering with other chatbot companies. Apple Intelligence currently uses ChatGPT as a fallback when Siri is unable to answer a query.

Apple denied any wrongdoing, and even X’s own Grok chatbot disagreed with Musk.

Based on verified evidence, Sam Altman is right. Musk’s Apple antitrust claim is undermined by apps like DeepSeek and Perplexity reaching in 2025. Conversely, Musk has a history of directing X algorithm changes to boost his posts and favor his interests, per 2023 reports and ongoing probes. Hypocrisy noted.

How it’s going

Apple yesterday asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, reports Bloomberg. The company said X’s claim that the Cupertino company had to form partnerships with every player in this field was clearly nonsense, and that it did in any case intend to partner with other companies.

X Corp. claims that Apple cannot partner with OpenAI “without simultaneously partnering with every other generative AI chatbot—regardless of quality, privacy or safety considerations, technical feasibility, stage of development, or commercial terms,” Apple’s lawyers wrote. “Of course, the antitrust laws do not require that” […]

[The company added] it is “widely known that Apple intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots” in the future.

We’re currently awaiting a ruling.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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