OpenAI stuck fighting Musk antitrust suit after Apple finds a way out

Elon Musk confirmed in a court filing on Monday that he has resolved all claims against Apple in his antitrust suit over the iPhone's ChatGPT integration, agreeing never to raise those claims again while refusing to drop the same claims against OpenAI. Musk had sued Apple and OpenAI in August 2025, alleging the partnership gave the firms a "monopoly" on Apple users' AI prompts; OpenAI has called the suit an attempt to harass the company and mocked Musk's estimate that the deal forecloses anywhere from 0 to 55 percent of the chatbot market as "back-of-the-envelope math." The filing does not disclose any negotiated settlement terms or explain why X sought voluntary dismissal.

Elon Musk is seemingly done attacking Apple over its decision to integrate ChatGPT into iPhone features. Back in 2024, when the partnership was first announced, Musk slammed the integration https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/elon-musk-is-livid-about-new-openai-apple-deal/ as an agreement from Apple to let OpenAI install “creepy spyware” on users’ devices. The next year, he sued https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/elon-musk-sues-apple-openai-to-block-exclusive-iphone-chatgpt-integration/ , claiming the partnership gave the firms a “monopoly” on Apple users’ AI prompts, which allegedly harmed competition in both smartphone and chatbot markets. For Musk, the fight with Apple seemingly escalated after he believed that his chatbot, Grok, was perhaps being illegally blocked https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/apple-gets-yanked-into-elon-musks-chatbot-war-with-openai/ from topping Apple’s App Store rankings. Last August, he claimed that “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.” However, on Monday, Musk confirmed in a court filing https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/X-v-Apple-Motion-to-Voluntarily-Dismiss-9-14-26.pdf that he has resolved all claims against Apple. The filing does not indicate if there were any negotiated settlement terms or otherwise explain why X would suddenly seek a voluntary dismissal. What is clear is that Musk agreed to never raise the claims again against Apple, while notably refusing to drop the same claims against OpenAI. Now, it seems that Musk plans to advance claims that OpenAI relied on the deal—which Apple emphasized was never exclusive—to monopolize the chatbot market. OpenAI has already slammed Musk’s lawsuit as another attempt to harass the AI company https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/a-brief-history-of-elon-musk-and-sam-altmans-ai-feud/ as Musk’s rival AI firm, now called SpaceXAI, races to catch up. Last fall, OpenAI mocked Musk’s claims as baseless https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/openai-mocks-musks-math-in-suit-over-iphone-chatgpt-integration/ , emphasizing that Musk won’t even “hazard a guess” at what portion of the chatbot market is being foreclosed by the OpenAI/Apple deal. Instead, Musk claimed it could be anywhere from 0 to 55 percent, based on “back-of-the-envelope math” that OpenAI thinks the court should reject.