Apple has responded to Elon Musk's accusations of bias in the App Store, saying the platform is "fair and free from bias." In a comment to Bloomberg, the company explained that the promotion of applications is carried out through ratings, algorithmic recommendations and expert selections based on objective criteria.
Musk, the founder of xAI, accused Apple of "blatant antitrust violations" over its alleged favoritism for OpenAI. He threatened immediate legal action and asked why Apple refused to add X or its chatbot Grok to its Must Have section. Musk claims that X is the "#1 news app in the world," while Grok is the fifth-largest app of all apps. He suggested that the company was "playing politics."
Musk did not provide any evidence for his claims, however. Other AI apps unrelated to OpenAI have also reached the top of the App Store, with China's DeepSeek leading the free app rankings in January, and Perplexity taking first place in India in July, after Apple announced its partnership with OpenAI.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Musk's criticism, calling it "astonishing," as he had heard accusations that Musk himself was using X for his own benefit and to the detriment of competitors. Musk responded by calling him " Scam Altman " and saying that he "lies as easily as he breathes."