Elon Musk drops Apple from antitrust lawsuit over iPhone ChatGPT integration

Dismissal in Texas federal court

On 14 September 2026, Elon Musk's X Corp and SpaceXAI filed court paperwork to dismiss their antitrust lawsuit against Apple with prejudice in Fort Worth, Texas. The federal court filing confirmed that all claims against Apple were resolved, though the document provided no explanation for the decision and disclosed no settlement terms. Apple did not oppose the voluntary dismissal. While the claims against the iPhone maker are permanently closed, Musk's companies confirmed that their antitrust lawsuit against OpenAI remains active.

Allegations over Siri and ChatGPT integration

The lawsuit, first filed in August 2025, accused Apple and OpenAI of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and Texas antitrust statutes. Musk alleged that the companies coordinated to entrench their respective market positions by integrating ChatGPT into the iPhone operating system, including Siri, Writing Tools, and camera functions. The complaint argued that this integration granted OpenAI access to billions of user prompts across hundreds of millions of devices, denying competitors like Grok the scale required to compete. The filing also asserted that Apple manipulated App Store rankings and delayed competitor app reviews, though apps from rivals such as DeepSeek and Perplexity later reached top spots.

Musk publicly criticized the App Store distribution model during the dispute:

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.

In the original complaint, Musk asserted that Apple controlled 65% of the United States smartphone market, while OpenAI held an 80% share of the generative artificial intelligence chatbot market.

Legal history and fractured alliances

In November 2025, US District Judge Mark Pittman rejected motions from Apple and OpenAI to dismiss the case, allowing the litigation to move forward. OpenAI described the proceedings as a campaign of lawfare by Musk, who was an early investor before departing the organisation. Musk faced another legal setback in May 2026, when a California jury rejected his separate lawsuit alleging OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unlawfully transformed the non-profit venture into a commercial enterprise.

Tensions between Apple and OpenAI also developed outside the Texas courtroom. In July 2026, Apple filed a trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI and two former Apple employees over confidential manufacturing and product development data. At the same time, Apple updated Siri in the United States using Google Gemini models for select features, backed by an estimated $1 billion annual agreement with Google.

Ongoing litigation against OpenAI

SpaceXAI, which absorbed xAI into SpaceX, continues to litigate against OpenAI while developing its Grok chatbot. The software faced independent scrutiny and an ongoing investigation in California regarding the generation of nonconsensual imagery. Over the weekend before the filing, Musk and Altman both voiced support for a safety proposal by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei regarding the pace of AI development. The Texas proceedings against OpenAI will continue without Apple as a co-defendant.