NEW DELHI— Apple has pushed back against accusations from Elon Musk that it is giving preferential treatment to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in its App Store rankings, calling its platform “fair and free of bias.”
Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX, and social media platform X, alleged that ChatGPT’s dominance in App Store charts is due to Apple’s favoritism, while his own apps — including X and xAI’s Grok chatbot — are being marginalized. In posts on X, Musk claimed that despite X leading the News chart and Grok receiving major updates, including making Grok 4 free for all users, the chatbot only reached fifth place overall and second in the Productivity category.
Apple denied manipulating rankings, saying App Store recommendations are determined by “charts, algorithms, and expert editorial curation using objective criteria.” The company said its goal is to provide safe discovery for users and valuable visibility for developers, adding that it collaborates broadly to highlight apps in fast-growing categories.
Musk also suggested that Apple’s promotion of ChatGPT was not entirely organic, pointing to editorial features and the integration of OpenAI’s technology into its upcoming Apple Intelligence rollout, which will embed ChatGPT into Siri and writing tools. He threatened “immediate legal action,” though no suit has yet been filed.
The dispute comes as Apple navigates heightened regulatory and legal scrutiny. The company is appealing elements of a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust case and continues to battle Epic Games over mandated changes to its App Store policies.
OpenAI, which released GPT-5 last week, recently announced sizable bonus payouts to about one-third of its workforce. GPT-5 is now available to all users, with expanded capabilities for Plus and Pro subscribers, the latter gaining access to GPT-5 Pro with enhanced reasoning and accuracy. (Source: IANS)
