A federal judge denied Apple and OpenAI’s motions to dismiss Elon Musk’s antitrust lawsuit on Thursday, allowing X Corp. and xAI’s claims of market monopolization to proceed toward trial.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Pittman rejected both companies’ attempts to dismiss the case, ruling that the allegations warrant further examination through summary judgment. “This Order should not be construed as a judgment (or pre-judgment) on the merits of this litigation,” the ruling states.
The lawsuit, filed in August, targets Apple’s June 2024 decision to make ChatGPT the exclusive AI assistant integrated into iOS. According to Alex Chandra, a partner at IGNOS Law Alliance, who spoke to Decrypt, “This is a procedural step. The real impact now is where the facts will actually be tested.”
The case highlights an unresolved question globally about how “default AI integrations on dominant platforms” should be treated under antitrust law, especially as regulators are still defining what the “AI market” even is, Chandra added.
X Corp. and xAI’s complaint seeks billions in damages, alleging the exclusive arrangement gives ChatGPT access to “hundreds of millions of iPhones” while blocking competitors like xAI’s Grok chatbot. The lawsuit claims ChatGPT controls “at least 80 percent” of the generative AI chatbot market, while Grok holds only “a few percent” despite its superior capabilities.
Musk’s firms also accuse Apple of manipulating 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 featured.
Ishita Sharma, managing partner at Fathom Legal, told Decrypt that the case hinges on “evidence of exclusion vs. efficiency,” questioning whether rivals are “truly blocked” from Apple’s iOS or if it’s simply a “competitive partnership in a nascent but fast-moving market.”
The defense is expected to argue that “competition remains alive” across platforms and browsers, that the arrangement may not be “strictly exclusive” contractually, and that the integration delivers competitive efficiencies, Sharma added.
Decrypt has reached out to Apple, OpenAI, and X for comment.
Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever. However, he stepped down from its board in 2018 to “eliminate a potential future conflict” as Tesla expanded its own AI work, according to an announcement at the time.
Since then, Musk has accused OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission for “a closed, profit-driven arm of Microsoft.” He has filed multiple lawsuits against the organization, including a notable suit alleging trade secret theft filed just two months ago.
https://bitcoinethereumnews.com/tech/judge-denies-apple-openai-bid-to-dismiss-elon-musks-antitrust-lawsuit/