The Pulse
Musk Drops Apple Claims and Keeps Antitrust Case Against OpenAI
X Corp. and SpaceXAI ask a Texas federal court to dismiss their antitrust claims against Apple after resolving the dispute. The companies keep their claims against OpenAI over Apple’s integration of ChatGPT in iPhone features.
AI.info Team ·
Apple exits, OpenAI stays in Musk’s antitrust case
Elon Musk’s companies are dropping their antitrust claims against Apple while keeping the same legal fight alive against OpenAI. X Corp. and SpaceXAI LLC filed the motion on September 14, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The filing says the plaintiffs have “resolved their claims” against Apple and asks the court to dismiss those claims with prejudice. Apple does not oppose the request. The motion gives no details about the terms of the resolution and does not explain whether the parties reached a settlement involving money, business commitments or other conditions.
The filing draws a sharp line around the remaining case. “For the avoidance of doubt,” the plaintiffs say, they are not seeking to dismiss any claims against OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI LLC or OpenAI OpCo LLC.
Why Musk sued Apple and OpenAI
The lawsuit targeted Apple’s agreement to integrate ChatGPT into features tied to Apple Intelligence and Siri. Musk’s companies argued that the arrangement helped OpenAI gain an unfair advantage over competing chatbot providers, including Grok, by giving ChatGPT privileged access to Apple’s device ecosystem.
Musk escalated the dispute in August 2025 after criticizing Apple’s App Store rankings. He said Apple was making it impossible for an AI company other than OpenAI to reach the top of the store, calling the conduct an antitrust violation. The lawsuit later combined those allegations with claims that Apple and OpenAI had restricted competition in smartphone and chatbot markets.
Apple rejected the theory and argued that its agreement with OpenAI was not exclusive. The company maintained that it could work with other AI providers, a position that narrowed the practical force of Musk’s claim that the partnership locked competitors out of Apple’s platform.
OpenAI remains the target
With Apple removed from the case, Musk’s companies can continue arguing that OpenAI used the Apple relationship to strengthen its position in the chatbot market. The remaining defendants are three OpenAI entities named in the court filing: OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI LLC and OpenAI OpCo LLC.
OpenAI has described the lawsuit as an effort to pressure or harass the company while Musk’s own AI business competes with it. In earlier filings, OpenAI challenged Musk’s estimates of how much of the chatbot market the Apple arrangement allegedly foreclosed, arguing that his calculations were speculative.
The narrowed case also leaves OpenAI to defend the allegations without Apple as a co-defendant. That changes the shape of the dispute: claims about Apple’s App Store conduct and device strategy no longer need to be resolved as part of the same case, while the claims focused on OpenAI’s alleged market conduct remain.
What the filing does not reveal
The motion does not identify the reason for the resolution with Apple. It does not disclose whether Apple agreed to change its relationship with OpenAI, provide documents, make a payment or take any action involving competing AI services.
The request also seeks dismissal with prejudice, which would prevent X Corp. and SpaceXAI from bringing the same claims against Apple again if the court grants it. The document itself records the parties’ position but does not state that the court has approved every requested term.
For now, the legal fight continues against OpenAI alone. Musk’s companies have abandoned the Apple claims, but the September 14 filing expressly preserves their allegations against the AI company that remains at the center of the case.