In short
- A US federal judge has rejected Apple and OpenAI’s requests to dismiss Elon Musk’s antitrust lawsuit.
- The ruling allows X Corp.’s claims to be dismissed. and xAI will proceed, with Judge Mark Pittman directing the case toward summary judgment rather than early dismissal.
- The lawsuit takes aim at Apple’s exclusive ChatGPT integration into iOS, claiming it gives OpenAI access to hundreds of millions of iPhone users while denying competitors like Grok equal integration options.
A federal judge denied Apple and OpenAI’s requests to dismiss Elon Musk’s antitrust lawsuit on Thursday, ending X Corp.’s claims. and xAI could be brought to court over market monopolization.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Pittman rejected both companies’ attempts to dismiss the case, ruling that the allegations warrant further investigation through summary judgment.
“This order should not be interpreted as a judgment (or prejudice) on the merits of this lawsuit,” the judge said. pronunciation say.
The court casefiled in August, focuses on Apple’s June 2024 decision to make ChatGPT the exclusive AI assistant integrated into iOS.
“This is a procedural step. The real impact now is where the facts will actually be tested,” even Alex Chandra, a partner at IGNOS Law Alliance, told Declutter.
The case highlights “a globally unresolved question” about how “standard AI integrations on dominant platforms” should be treated under antitrust law, with regulators still defining what the “AI market” actually is, Chandra added.
X Corp.’s complaint and xAI is seeking billions in damages, claiming the exclusive agreement gives ChatGPT access to “hundreds of millions of iPhones” while blocking competitors like xAI’s Grok chatbot.
The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT controls “at least 80 percent” of the generative AI chatbot market, while Grok controls only “a few percent” despite superior capabilities.
Musk’s companies also accuse Apple of manipulating the App Store rankings to favor ChatGPT while suppressing competitors. Despite Grok ranking second in Apple’s “Productivity” category and X ranking first in “News,” neither appears in the prominent “Must-Have Apps” section, where ChatGPT is listed.
Ishita Sharma, managing partner at Fathom Legal, says Declutter the case hinges on “evidence of exclusion versus efficiency,” whether rivals are “really blocked” from Apple’s iOS or if it is simply a ‘competitive partnership in an emerging but rapidly changing market’.
The defense will likely argue that “competition remains alive” between platforms and browsers, that the agreement may not be contractually “strictly exclusive,” and that the integration creates competitive efficiencies, Sharma added.
Declutter has contacted Apple, OpenAI and X for comment.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, but resigned from his board in 2018, according to an announcement that said his departure would “eliminate a potential future conflict” as Tesla expanded its own AI work.
Musk has since done just that accused OpenAI has abandoned its openness to “a closed, profit-driven arm of Microsoft” and has repeatedly filed lawsuits, most notably a lawsuit about abandoning its founding mission and filed suit two months ago theft of trade secrets.
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