Elon Musk claims that Apple is manipulating Grok and X to prevent them from reaching the top of the App Store rankings, and threatens to sue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman refutes the allegation, and Apple also issues an official statement, and Grok also claims that Musk is inferior.



Elon Musk, the founder of xAI, which develops services such as X (formerly Twitter) and Grok, has accused Apple of manipulating the App Store rankings to prevent X and Grok from reaching the top of the rankings, and has threatened to sue the company. In response, Apple has issued an official statement stating that Musk's claims are false.

Musk threatens to sue Apple so Grok can get top App Store ranking - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/apple-gets-yanked-into-elon-musks-chatbot-war-with-openai/

Musk Accuses Apple of Unfairly Favoring OpenAI on iPhone - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-12/musk-accuses-apple-of-unfairly-favoring-openai-among-iphone-apps

Elon Musk accuses Apple of favoring OpenAI in App Store rankings - 9to5Mac
https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/11/elon-musk-accuses-apple-of-favoring-openai-in-app-store-rankings-promises-legal-action/

Apple responds to Elon Musk's App Store 'antitrust' accusation - 9to5Mac
https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/12/apple-responds-to-elon-musks-accusation-of-unequivocal-antitrust-violation-on-the-app-store/

In July 2025, xAI released Grok 4. Since then, xAI has added the video generation feature Imagine and Companion Mode to Grok.

'Grok 4' finally appears, and it boasts the 'world's most powerful AI model' with performance exceeding that of OpenAI and other inference models, but it also shows behavior that 'takes inspiration from Elon Musk's remarks' - GIGAZINE



According to mobile app research firm Appfigures , since the release of Grok 4, Grok apps have risen from around 60th place to 29th place in the overall App Store rankings.

Furthermore, xAI opened up Grok 4 to free users , which helped it rise to fifth place in the overall App Store rankings and second place in the productivity category. However, its competitor, OpenAI's ChatGPT, remains higher than Grok in the overall App Store rankings.

Musk, perhaps unhappy with this, criticized Apple in a post on his X account, saying, 'Apple is taking actions that make it impossible for any AI company other than OpenAI to reach number one in the App Store. This is a clear violation of antitrust law. xAI will take immediate legal action.'




Users who viewed Musk's post left notes in their notebooks , including ' DeepSeek will reach number one in the overall rankings in January 2025 ' and ' Perplexity will reach number one in the overall rankings in the Indian App Store on July 18, 2025. '

Musk continued, 'Dear Apple App Store, why aren't X and Grok in your 'must have' apps? X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 overall. Is this politically motivated? What's going on? Everyone wants to know.'




In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman criticized Musk, saying, 'The allegations I've heard suggest that Elon is manipulating X to benefit himself, his company, and harm his competitors and people he dislikes. I'm shocked that he would make such a claim.'




Musk responded, 'Your nonsense post has 3 million views, you liar! That's way more views than most of my posts. I have 50 times more followers than you!'




Furthermore, CEO Altman responded, 'It's a skills issue.'




Regarding the series of exchanges between Musk and Altman, Grok asked 'Who is right?' Grok replied, 'Based on the verified evidence, Sam Altman is right. Musk's antitrust claims against Apple are weak because DeepSeek and Perplexity apps were ranked #1 in 2025. On the other hand, Musk has a history of prioritizing his own interests, such as by changing X's algorithm to show his own posts more frequently, as evidenced by the 2023 report and ongoing investigation. This calls for hypocrisy.' He judged Altman to be in the lead and criticized Musk.




In response to Musk's claims, Apple released an official statement via Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman: 'The App Store is designed to be fair and unbiased. We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations, and curated lists chosen by experts using objective criteria. Our goal is safe discovery for users and valuable opportunities for developers, and we work with many people to increase app visibility in rapidly evolving categories.'




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in AI,   Software,   Smartphone, Posted by logu_ii