Upset that his own app, Grok, wasn't featured on the recommended list, Musk blasted Apple for favoring its partner, OpenAI, and threatened to sue Apple for alleged monopoly manipulation of the App Store. However, netizens quickly refuted his claim with the Chinese app DeepSeek, and his own Grok bot called him hypocritical.

If he's not convinced, he'll fight. He's always on the offensive.

The world's richest man, Musk, seems to be constantly on a high, fighting edge, both in politics and business. Over the past few years, he's frequently lashed out at Democratic President Biden, engaged in verbal battles with key Democratic administration officials, and recently attacked current President Trump, completely disregarding potential political retaliation and Tesla's plummeting stock price.

In the business world, Musk is like a "pit bull," always poised to strike. He doesn't hesitate to strike if it benefits his company. Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, and Altman have all experienced his ridicule, provocation, attacks, and lawsuits.

The latest wave of Musk's wrath and fire has hit Apple, the dominant mobile platform. Over the past day, Musk has been posting on his social media platform, X, repeatedly, demonstrating a complete emotional cycle: first questioning, then speculation, then anger, and finally, announcing a lawsuit.

How has Apple angered Musk again this time? The world's richest man has repeatedly accused Apple of manipulating App Store rankings, favoring its partner OpenAI for its own commercial interests, and deliberately suppressing his own company by deliberately not including X and Grok apps in the iOS App Store's recommended list.

Netizens use DeepSeek to slap him in the face.

There's a reason Musk is so obsessed with rankings. Apple's App Store lists recommended, popular, and trending apps, which significantly influence an app's acquisition of new users. Furthermore, Apple hasn't elaborated on how and why it chooses specific apps for recommendation; the public only knows that factors include usability and positive reviews. Lack of transparency breeds suspicion. In a pinned post on the X platform, Musk questioned Apple: "Why are you refusing to put X or Grok in your 'must-have' section? X is the number one news app globally, and Grok is number five of all apps."

He then questioned Apple's favoritism towards ChatGPT: "Why are Grok and X apps excluded from every list except those measuring raw downloads, while ChatGPT is on every list? This is so confusing!"

Musk was clearly agitated, determined to challenge the injustice. He accused Apple of monopoly: "Apple's actions make it impossible for any AI company other than OpenAI to reach number one in the App Store rankings. This is an unquestionable antitrust violation." He declared that he had no choice but to take immediate legal action against Apple.

Ironically, netizens used "community comments" under this post to directly contradict Musk, citing the source and pointing out that this was not true. In January of this year, the Chinese AI app DeepSeek topped the US app charts, and Perlexity also topped the Indian app charts. This was after Apple and OpenAI partnered.

Apple Faces Antitrust Lawsuit

Musk's public accusations and lawsuit threats will undoubtedly increase the public pressure on Apple. The mobile platform giant is currently facing antitrust lawsuits in the US and the EU, with the App Store at the heart of the proceedings. In March of last year, the US Department of Justice, along with 16 states, filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of monopolizing the smartphone market.

However, with the US government transitioning from the Biden era to the Trump era, it remains unclear whether the latter will continue to pursue this lawsuit. Just last week, Tim Cook visited the White House and announced an additional investment in the United States from $100 billion to $600 billion. He also respectfully presented Trump with a special gift: a commemorative trophy made of American-made glass and a heavy gold base—Trump's favorite 24-karat gold.

OpenAI's partnership with Apple is well known. As early as last year's WWDC, Apple announced that it would integrate ChatGPT into iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Siri, and many other products. Because Apple lacks its own mature large-scale models, it must seek external partners.

Reports indicate that Apple previously held separate discussions with Google and OpenAI before ultimately deciding on ChatGPT. However, ChatGPT is not an exclusive AI partner, and Apple has not discounted the opportunity to collaborate with other large-scale AI models. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Apple may also use Anthropic's technology to power next year's Siri update.

However, Apple's pace of AI integration has been too slow. After a year, it has not significantly improved the intelligence of its products, and Siri's understanding capabilities are still at a "prehistoric stage." In the crucial Chinese market, Apple hasn't even launched an AI product yet due to regulatory issues.

Apple's slow progress in AI has directly dragged down its stock price. While leading US tech companies have continued to rise this year, Apple's stock price has fallen by 6%, second only to Tesla's 10% drop.

Musk's biggest rival

Perhaps Musk's biggest frustration isn't Grok's failure to top the Apple App Store charts, but ChatGPT's consistent presence in recommended lists, steadily gaining new users.

Last week, when OpenAI released GPT-5, it officially confirmed that ChatGPT had surpassed 700 million weekly active users. In comparison, Grok, which started later, has fewer than 40 million monthly active users, even fewer than Anthropic's Claude.

Musk currently considers Ultraman his biggest rival. Although he and Ultraman co-founded OpenAI and personally invested $100 million in it, he lost to Ultraman in the power struggle. OpenAI's board refused to let Musk take over day-to-day management and instead appointed Altman as CEO, prompting Musk to resign in anger.

The OpenAI board's refusal to support Musk stemmed primarily from the fact that in 2018, he was preoccupied with ramping up production of the Tesla Model 3 while juggling multiple ventures, including SpaceX. Meanwhile, Altman had resigned from his position as CEO of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's largest incubator, to dedicate himself fully to OpenAI.

The proud Musk could not tolerate such humiliation. Throughout his illustrious career, which saw him become the world's richest man, he had only been marginalized by two people: Peter Thiel at PayPal and Altman at OpenAI. Thiel subsequently became a major investor, and his relationship with Musk was no longer in competition. He even invested in and supported Musk's businesses, leading to a reconciliation between the two.

But Altman is now Musk's greatest enemy. After ChatGPT ushered in the AI era, Musk's resentment towards OpenAI has only lingered. On the one hand, he's been using lawsuits to prevent OpenAI from transitioning to a for-profit company; on the other, he's personally founded xAI, attempting to compete head-on with ChatGPT.

Last year, after Apple and OpenAI announced a partnership to integrate ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads, and Macs, Musk threatened to ban Apple devices from his company if Apple deeply integrated OpenAI technology into its operating system. He's also hinted at launching his own mobile platform and smartphone.

Musk is a fiercely competitive person, unabashedly aggressive and unconcerned with so-called grace. After the release of GPT-5 last week, Musk posted repeatedly on X, emphasizing that his own Grok-4 is the industry leader and even more powerful than GPT-5.

It was against this backdrop, seeing ChatGPT consistently top the Apple App Store's recommended rankings while Grok struggled to gain traction with Apple, that Musk finally lost his temper, accusing Apple of favoring its partner, OpenAI, and secretly suppressing its competitor.

The two robots have turned against each other.

OpenAI, of course, refused to accept Musk's accusations. OpenAI CEO Altman directly retweeted Musk's X-post, sarcastically stating, "Given the numerous accounts I've heard, this is a compelling allegation of how Musk manipulates X to benefit himself and his company while harming competitors and those he dislikes."

Altman also retweeted a 2023 report revealing that Musk had tweaked the X-post algorithm to prioritize his own X-posts for all platform users. Furthermore, in June of this year, media outlets discovered that Grok consulted Musk's personal views before answering sensitive questions on topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US immigration, and abortion.

Musk, enraged by the backlash, lashed out at Altman with a profanity, "Your bullshit X post has 3 million views! You liar, it's far more than many of my X posts have, even though I have 50 times as many followers as you."

Altman bluntly retorted, "Why don't you sign an affidavit stating that you never ordered adjustments to X's algorithm to target your competitors or help your own company? If you dare, I'll apologize."

Even more embarrassing for Musk was that his own Grok turned against him again. The Grok chatbot replied, "Based on the verified evidence, Altman is correct. Musk's antitrust allegations against Apple are unfounded. DeepSeek and Perplexity both reached the top of the App Store this year. Moreover, Musk has indeed ordered adjustments to X's algorithm in the past to promote his own posts and favor his own interests."

Grok even described Musk as "hypocritical." This response garnered 1.5 million views. From another perspective, while Grok's frankness embarrassed Musk, it at least proved that Grok wasn't unconditionally partial to his boss.

To save face, Musk subsequently shared a chat with ChatGPT. Musk asked ChatGPT, "Who is more trustworthy, Ultraman or Musk?" ChatGPT directly replied, "Musk." Interestingly, when Grok was asked the same question, he chose Ultraman.

Musk's Resentment Against Apple

The betrayal between the two robots may be the biggest laugh in this war of words. But Musk also has a long history of resentment against Apple. In 2013, when Apple secretly established a car manufacturing team and attempted to poach Tesla employees, Musk publicly mocked it, saying, "Apple is just Tesla's graveyard. Only those who can't make it at Tesla will go to Apple." However, according to Musk's own recollection, in 2018, when Tesla was facing financial difficulties due to the Model 3's inability to mass produce and its stock price plummeted due to short selling, Musk attempted to sell Tesla to Apple for $70 billion, but Cook refused to meet with him.

However, this statement, made after Tesla's market value soared at the end of 2020 and Musk became the world's richest man, had a distinctly "you looked down on me then, now I'm out of your reach" tone. Cook completely denied this, saying he had never spoken with Musk, had great respect for Tesla, and "did not recall" receiving such an acquisition offer.

At the end of 2022, after Musk spent $44 billion to acquire Twitter, the most politically influential social media platform, he overhauled it, ultimately renaming it "X." Musk not only laid off nearly 80% of its employees but, citing the need to protect free speech, abolished Twitter's previous content moderation policies, unlocking tens of thousands of blocked conservative accounts, including Trump's, and providing a crucial platform for conservative public opinion in Trump's subsequent election.