Elon Musk's X filed a voluntary dismissal on September 14, 2026 that ends all antitrust claims against Apple over its ChatGPT integration, while keeping the same claims alive against OpenAI. The narrowed case is scheduled to head to trial this fall, with Musk pressing the argument that OpenAI leveraged the iPhone deal to monopolize the chatbot market. Musk agreed to never raise the dismissed claims against Apple again, but the filing does not disclose whether any settlement terms were negotiated.
The suit dates to 2024, when Apple announced it would build ChatGPT into iPhone features. Musk called the integration an agreement to install "creepy spyware" on user devices, then sued the following year alleging the deal handed the two companies a monopoly over Apple users' AI prompts. He argued the arrangement harmed competition in both the smartphone and chatbot markets.
The dispute escalated last August when Musk claimed his chatbot, Grok, was being blocked from topping App Store rankings.
“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.”— Elon Musk, CEO of xAI and X
Key facts
- 01Musk filed a voluntary dismissal of all claims against Apple on September 14, 2026, agreeing to never raise them again.
- 02OpenAI remains the sole defendant as the narrowed litigation heads to trial in fall 2026.
- 03Musk's damages estimate for chatbot market foreclosure ranges from 0 to 55 percent, which OpenAI called back-of-the-envelope math.
- 04OpenAI expected the Apple integration could generate billions of dollars per year in subscriptions but said in May 2026 it felt burned by the deal.
- 05A court ordered Apple this summer to hand over internal messages about the OpenAI deal to Musk's companies.
OpenAI has repeatedly framed the litigation as harassment from a rival racing to catch up. Musk's AI firm, now called SpaceXAI, competes directly with OpenAI's flagship product. In its response last fall, OpenAI noted that Musk would not "hazard a guess" at what portion of the chatbot market the Apple deal actually forecloses — his estimate spans 0 to 55 percent, a range OpenAI has asked the court to reject as unsupported.
Apple has consistently emphasized that the ChatGPT integration is not exclusive. In earlier filings, Apple warned that a Musk win would set a precedent that any supplier deal violates antitrust law whenever a rival's proposal is rejected — an outcome it argued would devastate ordinary tech-industry contracting.
OpenAI, for its part, has been building a second line of defense that undercuts the monopoly theory from the other direction: it says the deal never delivered. In May 2026, OpenAI began publicly saying it felt "burned" by the Apple integration, arguing Apple did not meaningfully promote the ChatGPT features. One executive told Bloomberg the company had expected the partnership "could generate billions of dollars per year in subscriptions," but that Apple designed the surface in a way that made the chatbot hard to discover. Renegotiation talks reportedly stalled, and OpenAI was said to be weighing its own legal options.
That framing matters for the antitrust case. If OpenAI can show the Apple deal produced neither the exclusivity nor the distribution windfall Musk alleges, the foreclosure theory collapses regardless of how the market share math is drawn.
Musk may also be running into the same procedural wall that sank his last case against OpenAI. Earlier this year, a jury unanimously ruled that Musk waited too long to sue over his claim that OpenAI abandoned its founding mission — a loss on timing rather than merits. Apple and OpenAI have both argued Musk lacks standing to bring smartphone-market claims because none of his companies make smartphones.
The timing of the Apple dismissal is notable. This summer, a court ordered Apple to hand Musk's companies a set of internal messages in which employees discussed the OpenAI arrangement. That discovery may have given Musk the material he wanted to sharpen his foreclosure calculations against OpenAI, at which point continuing to litigate against Apple offered diminishing returns.
The strategic read is that Musk has narrowed his target and lowered his procedural risk in one move. Suing Apple invited a defense built around standing and industry-wide precedent; suing OpenAI alone reframes the case as one AI company allegedly locking up a distribution channel to freeze out competitors. That is a harder argument for OpenAI to win on summary judgment and a more sympathetic story for a jury. Whether the underlying foreclosure claim survives contact with OpenAI's "the deal underperformed" defense is the question the fall trial will answer — and the outcome will shape how aggressively future AI distribution deals with device makers get written.
Working on something we should cover, or seeing a story we missed? Send leads, documents, or feedback to hello@aichatdaily.com. For sensitive tips, see our secure tips page for Signal and PGP options.
Spotted an error? Email hello@aichatdaily.com with the URL and the issue, or read our full corrections policy.
