Elon Musk accused Apple Inc. and OpenAI in a lawsuit of unfairly favoring the artificial intelligence company across iPhones and thwarting competition for other chatbot makers. 

Musk’s X and xAI filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, arguing that Apple’s decision to integrate OpenAI into the iPhone’s operating system harms competition and deprives consumers of choice. 

The billionaire founder of xAI Holdings, which now houses the Grok AI team and X social network, said Apple makes it impossible for anyone other than OpenAI’s ChatGPT to reach the top of the App Store charts, a sought-after global spotlight for app developers.

The case sets up a high-stakes court showdown between the richest person on the planet and one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Apple and OpenAI — whose ChatGPT service is the most-downloaded free iPhone app in the US — have a partnership around AI built into the latest iPhones. Musk, 54, has a long-running feud with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, which dates back to disagreements that led to their split after the two founded OpenAI together.

Apple and OpenAI’s “exclusive arrangement has made ChatGPT the only generative AI chatbot integrated into the iPhone,” lawyers for Musk’s companies said in the lawsuit, and “have locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing.”

Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Apple has tangled with regulators around the world in recent years over claims that its app store has illegally squelched competition in the marketplace for mobile applications used on smartphones. The iPhone maker also has been engaged a five-year legal fight with Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. over the App Store’s dominance of the smartphone software market.

The suit follows an Aug. 11 post on X by Musk, who asked if Apple is “playing politics” by not highlighting his products. Apple responded in a statement that the App Store “is designed to be fair and free of bias.” Altman responded to Musk’s X post by turning the focus to how Musk manages the X network, suggesting he manipulates it to serve his personal interests. 

With assistance from Peter Blumberg, Mark Gurman and Shirin Ghaffary.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.