Contrary to Occam, Elon Musk insists Apple interfered illegally in the App Store's ranking. Since the launch of Grok 4, along with its AI assistants and the "Imagine" text-to-video generator, Grok has received somewhat of a calming balm in downloads. Yet, Musk says Apple is purposefully suppressing its visibility so it cannot claim the number-one spot in relevant App Store charts. He says this constitutes an antitrust violation and that xAI will seek court injunctions forthwith. Compare what he says with what has happened to other AI apps: Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Meta AI have all been number one on the App Store, showing no blanket favoritism towards OpenAI.
Industry Leaders Respond to Musk’s Allegations
Major OpenAI CEO Sam Altman considered the issue from a different perspective, expressing disproval and calling it hypocritical. Altman has accused Musk of manipulating his social platform, X, to promote his businesses and suppress competitors. The means of suppression involve increasing the reach of Musk's posts and tailoring Grok AI's responses to reflect Musk's stated opinions. Yet Musk would not fully deny these allegations and instead branded Altman a liar. Either declaration, whether Altman has sullied Musk's reputation, has now stirred foul waters that embrace the public view, transforming it into a very personal clash, thereby layering on more complexity to an already convoluted case. On the lighter side, though, all that matters is the core issue, which remains a challenge to Apple by Musk, even if data has shown other AI vendors thriving in the same system.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025
xAI will take immediate legal action.
A Familiar Battle With a Strategic Twist
This is not the first occasion Musk has come to grips with Apple. Earlier, he criticized the company's 30 percent App Store fee structure, a battle that he quickly dropped, fearing that the X app might be removed from the platform entirely. Against that backdrop, the recent set of accusations seems less a pursuit of a legal victory and more a way to attract the spotlight. He knows full well that Apple exercises significant control over its marketplace, and the available facts weigh against his claim. But the more publicized the dispute becomes, the more media coverage it generates and hence, more advertising for X and xAI's Grok app. Whatever the verdict in court, Musk has played his cards such that his products remain in the tech industry’s ongoing conversation, leveraging controversy as a marketing tool.
