Home
Apps
Apps News
Apple Responds After Elon Musk Alleges Favourism to OpenAI, Says App Store ‘Free of Bias’: Report

Apple Responds After Elon Musk Alleges Favourism to OpenAI, Says App Store ‘Free of Bias’: Report

On Monday, X CTO Elon Musk accused Apple of unfairly ranking ChatGPT in its editorial sections.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Ketan Pratap | Updated: 13 August 2025 18:56 IST

Apple Responds After Elon Musk Alleges Favourism to OpenAI, Says App Store ‘Free of Bias’: Report

Photo Credit: Unsplash/James Yarema

Apple reportedly said its curated lists are selected by experts based on objective criteria

Click Here to Add Gadgets360 As A Trusted Source

Highlights

Elon Musk alleged that Apple is favouring OpenAI due to their deal
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Musk is using X to promote his companies
Apple has reportedly now refuted the billionaire’s allegations

Apple has reportedly responded to the allegations made by Elon Musk on Monday, where the billionaire accused the iPhone maker of being biased towards OpenAI's ChatGPT app. The Cupertino-based tech giant has refuted all allegations and highlighted that apps are ranked on the App Store based on algorithms and selection by experts operating with objective criteria. Notably, the Chief Technology Officer of X (formerly known as Twitter) made a series of posts on the social media platform questioning Apple's App Store handling practices.

Apple Denies Elon Musk's Accusations

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that the App Store is designed to be free of bias. “We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria. Our goal is to offer safe discovery for users and valuable opportunities for developers, collaborating with many to increase app visibility in rapidly evolving categories,” the publication cited the spokesperson as saying.

On Monday, Musk started a war of words on X after learning that ChatGPT ranked high in various charts of the App Store and featured in almost all of the editorial sections. The billionaire entrepreneur went so far as to call it “an unequivocal antitrust violation” and threatened to take legal action against the iPhone maker.

Elon Musk and Sam Altman Get Tangled in War of Words, Once Again

In a separate post, he also claimed that Grok, a chatbot created by Musk-founded xAI, was intentionally not being listed in any of the app charts, and accused that due to the AI deal with OpenAI, Apple was “making it impossible for any other AI company to succeed.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also got involved in the exchange of words and said, “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like.” To this, Musk called Altman a liar and claimed that his post received three million views, which were higher than some of his posts, despite me having 50 times your follower count!”

Notably, Perplexity currently ranks at the top of the App Store's Free Apps chart in India. OpenAI's ChatGPT is ranked in the second position, while xAI's Grok lies in the 12th spot.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Further reading: Apple, App Store, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, ChatGPT, OpenAI, xAI, Grok, AI, Artificial Intelligence

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Chief Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More