Elon’s one tinfoil hat away from claiming Tim Cook and Sam Altman meet at Bohemian Grove to summon the ghost of Steve Jobs.

As if we didn’t already have enough collusion beef clogging the national arteries, now we’ve got Elon himself marching into federal court, antitrust flags flapping behind him like he’s George Washington crossing the Delaware.

This morning, two of Elon’s babies (X and xAI) officially filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, claiming the duo cooked up an “anticompetitive scheme” to choke out any AI rival that doesn’t come stamped with a fruit logo or Sam Altman’s nameplate. On paper, the argument is pretty straightforward: Musk says Apple deliberately buries “super apps” and rival chatbots like Grok in the App Store rankings, only to then roll out the red carpet for ChatGPT thanks to its flashy partnership with OpenAI last year.

The end result, according to Musk, is that consumers never even see Grok or anyone else because Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” page looks more like an OpenAI sponsorship. And of course, Elon’s lawyers aren’t aiming low… they’re swinging for billions in damages (whether they get a dollar is anyone’s guess).

(Source: Reuters)

I can’t say I’m surprised. Musk’s anger isn’t exactly new. He’s been hinting at this move for weeks, posting on X that Apple’s behavior “makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store.” He called it “an unequivocal antitrust violation.” Because to him, Apple is basically tilting the entire playing field toward Sam Altman, the same guy he co-founded OpenAI with before storming out back in 2018.

OpenAI, of course, brushed it off as just another entry in Elon’s “pattern of harassment.” Apple didn’t even bother with a public comment (at least not yet), which is usually their way of letting the lawyers do the talking. Meanwhile, users pointed out that Grok isn’t exactly rotting in the basement. Community Notes on X flagged examples of other chatbots (DeepSeek, Perplexity, take your pick) hitting the top of the App Store charts even after Apple announced its OpenAI lovefest. Which makes Musk’s crusade look less like a heroic fight for competition and more like sour grapes that his chatbot isn’t the main character he thought it’d be (as Lizzo once not so gracefully said, “the truth hurts”).

Let’s give Elon some credit where it’s due. While he may be crazy in more ways than one… He’s not wrong that Apple runs one of the most anti-competitive walled gardens in tech. Epic Games already made that case with Fortnite, and Apple’s been sued a dozen times over App Store rules. But Musk crying monopoly while simultaneously running Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, and X (four monopolies in their own lanes) feels a little rich. It’s the pot suing the kettle for being too black.

At the end of the day, this isn’t some underdog fairy tale Elon would love for us to believe… it’s two billionaires swinging handbags at each other while the rest of us are stuck watching from the splash zone. And the ending’s probably as boring as it gets: either the judge punts it, or Apple writes a check so small it makes Elon wonder why he even tried in the first place. 

My expectations, in no particular order: Apple will keep ramming ChatGPT so deep into iOS it might as well replace Siri (just with more hallucinations), Grok will stay locked inside Tesla's cracking jokes that continue to make headlines, and Elon will go hunting for his next dopamine hit… probably by accusing Jeff Bezos of stashing the Ark of the Covenant inside a Blue Origin rocket.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple and Tesla as mentioned in the article.