Reports say that Elon Musk’s business xAI has sued Apple and OpenAI in a federal court in Texas. The lawsuit, which comes after Musk publicly threatened to sue Apple over its App Store restrictions, claims that there is a “illegal conspiracy” to impede competition in the fast-growing field of artificial intelligence.
The complaint directly questions the collaboration between OpenAI and Apple, which recently added OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Apple’s devices and operating systems. The complaint says that this partnership gives OpenAI an unfair advantage and makes it impossible for other AI businesses, like xAI, to compete fairly. Musk has openly criticized Apple of granting “unfair preference” to ChatGPT on its App Store, saying that this makes it impossible for other AI startups to get to the top.
Musk has fought OpenAI in court before. He is also suing the company he helped start for changing from a non-profit to a “capped-profit” model, which he says goes against its original aim to help people. Musk’s fight against what he sees as unfair business practices in the AI field gets even bigger with the new lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI.
The case brings up important antitrust issues regarding how the balance of power works between big platform owners like Apple and top AI developers. The outcome of this case could have a big effect on how AI technologies are shared and sold, which could change the future of competition and innovation in the AI field.