Apple Inc. and OpenAI are urging a U.S. judge to dismiss a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X Corp., saying the antitrust allegations in the complaint amount to mere speculation, as they don’t show real harm to competition.
The suit revolves around claims that Apple manipulated App Store rankings and conspired with OpenAI to block Musk’s AI products, such as xAI’s Grok.
Apple And OpenAI Move To Toss The X Corp. Case
In court papers, Apple describes the lawsuit as speculative and legally deficient, noting that it fails to identify a relevant market or even a plausible anticompetitive agreement. The company also emphasizes that its OpenAI contract is not exclusive, and that if a user decides to use an AI model to integrate with the platform, he or she exerts explicit control over whether content should be shared with external models.
OpenAI also urges dismissal, calling the claims an effort to litigate business gripes rather than antitrust. The companies counter that teaming up for optional integrations is far from colluding, and antitrust law doesn’t oblige Apple to ink the exact same deal with every AI vendor at once.
Claims Of ‘Rigged’ Rankings Come Under Scrutiny
X Corp.’s lawsuit accuses Apple of manipulating App Store charts to elevate ChatGPT and depress competitors such as Grok. But the picture is messier, and more competitive, when you look at data from third-party app intelligence firms. data.ai and Sensor Tower have reported a rotating array of AI apps dominating or coming close to the top of iOS charts, from ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to image and video editors during viral spikes.
Historically, AI-powered apps gain and lose popularity just as fast as features go viral — consider Lensa’s avatar fad or Remini’s photo enhancements — hinting that momentum and marketing, not popularity hoarding by the tech companies, fuel much of the up-and-down in rankings. Apple says top charts are driven by download volume and velocity, while editorial placements are classified separately to differentiate curation from algorithmic rankings.
Musk’s charge of a systematic conspiracy also prompted pushback from his own platform, where community fact-checks cast doubt on his unsupported allegation. That informal crowdsourced scrutiny is remarkably similar to what the companies argue in court: allegations alone don’t reach the legal bar.
Antitrust Context And The Nonexclusive AI Deal
So the heart of the antitrust question is whether there is an economically plausible way to show that how Apple operates plausibly harms competition, not merely a competitor, through contractual schemes of exclusion or monopoly control. Apple’s assertion that its OpenAI tie-up isn’t exclusive undermines a classic “exclusive dealing” theory, and the company has publicly stated that it plans to support multiple third-party models over time.
Courts also scrutinize market definition. And is the relevant market app distribution for iOS, mobile AI assistants, or something much more narrow like “AI chatbots on iPhones”? Just how much this matters is illustrated by some of the previous cases. In Epic Games v. Apple, most antitrust claims fell flat in court — though the court did order some changes to anti-steering rules. On another front, the U.S. Department of Justice also has an existing lawsuit on iPhone practices—highlighting a convoluted legal landscape that doesn’t necessarily buttress Musk’s specific allegations.
Usually, to survive a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs must demonstrate that there’s a plausible conspiracy and connect it to concrete consumer harm — higher prices for a product or service, reduced output or access blocked on competitive terms. Nonexclusive, optional AI integrations are harder ground for claiming foreclosure at scale, especially given the very apparent competition between AI apps.
What Happens Next In Court For Musk’s Antitrust Suit
The judge will rule on whether to dismiss the case entirely, grant X Corp. leave to amend its complaint, or let certain claims go forward into discovery. A complete dismissal would end the matter, at least for now; a partial one could help narrow the dispute to claims that clear a plausibility bar set by federal antitrust law.
If any of those claims survive and move forward, discovery could be used to poke around in Apple’s ranking systems, terms for partnering with AI, and internal decision-making. That’s often the calculus that shapes litigation strategy, in part because it imposes costs and risks for all parties having to disclose sensitive business information.
What This Means For App Developers And AI On iPhone
The results matter to AI developers, because the iOS platform is still an important distribution channel. Apple’s signal that it expects to back more than one AI model at a time, along with regulatory pressure in places like the European Union (where the Digital Markets Act is reconfiguring app distribution) suggests not fewer but a broader swath of AI services on the iPhone over time.
For consumers, this means that the low-hurdles enthusiasm of integrating AI is increasingly an opt-in and multi-provider reality in which ecosystem competition plays out as App Store churn. The legal battle now hinges on whether Musk’s charges can amount to more than frustration with a fast-moving market — and instead represent an antitrust violation. Apple and OpenAI claim they cannot, and they are asking to have the case thrown out before it can proceed far.
