Apple's App Store Rankings Favor OpenAI Over xAI, Says Musk

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Highlights

Accusation: Elon Musk alleges that Apple is committing an “unequivocal antitrust violation” by favoring OpenAI in App Store rankings.
Response: Apple denies any wrongdoing, stating that the App Store is designed to be fair and unbiased.
Partnership: Apple is currently collaborating with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its platforms.
Ranking: Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek has recently topped the App Store rankings, surpassing ChatGPT.

Elon Musk has accused Apple of committing an “unequivocal antitrust violation” by favoring OpenAI in the App Store rankings. In a post on X, he claimed that Apple has made it impossible for other AI companies to reach number one in those rankings and that xAI “will take immediate legal action.” Musk didn’t clarify what he meant by that, and he also didn’t provide evidence that would prove Apple’s supposed antitrust violation.

In an earlier post on X that’s currently pinned to the top of his profile, however, he tagged Apple, asking the company why it “[refuses] to put either X or Grok in [its] “Must Have” section. He said X is “the #1 news app in the world,” while Grok is ranked number five among all apps. “Are you playing politics? What gives?” he continued. In a statement sent to Bloomberg, Apple denied any wrongdoing and said that the App Store “is designed to be fair and free of bias.” The spokesperson added: “We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria. Our goal is to offer safe discovery for users and valuable opportunities for developers, collaborating with many to increase app visibility in rapidly evolving categories.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a response to Musk’s accusation on X, calling it a “remarkable claim,” given that he has heard allegations that Musk manipulates “X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.” To note, Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek became the top-rated free app on Apple’s App Store back in January, overtaking even ChatGPT.

While Musk didn’t mention it, Apple has an ongoing partnership with OpenAI. The company has integrated ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence to power cloud-based queries for its platforms. More recently, the company said that Apple Intelligence will leverage the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT-5 in iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26, which are set to arrive sometime in September.

Update, August 12, 2025, 8PM ET: This story has been updated to add Microsoft’s statement.

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