Musk drops antitrust suit against Apple, not OpenAI
Apple is off the hook after a settlement nobody has detailed, while Musk's antitrust claims against OpenAI stay in play.
In short
Elon Musk has withdrawn his competition lawsuit against Apple but is keeping the same case running against OpenAI.
At a glance
- Musk withdrew the competition lawsuit against Apple; reported on September 15, 2026.
- The suit was filed about a year ago against two defendants: Apple and OpenAI.
- The allegation: Apple favored ChatGPT in the App Store at Grok's expense.
- The part of the case aimed at OpenAI remains in place.
- Settlement terms are not public; we could not verify the court or the docket number.
Elon Musk has pulled his competition lawsuit against Apple. The parallel claims against OpenAI are untouched and continue. Nobody involved is saying what the two sides agreed on.
The complaint, in short
The dispute started with App Store rankings. Musk objected that his chatbot Grok was not topping the download charts while ChatGPT sat near the top. Out of that grew the argument that Apple was tilting the field toward one supplier and squeezing rival AI assistants on the iPhone.
The suit was filed about a year ago and named two defendants, Apple and OpenAI. The two firms work together on putting ChatGPT inside Apple's operating systems, and that closeness was the core of the complaint.
What changes, and what does not
For Apple, the matter is closed. The OpenAI portion stays live, which leaves the underlying question unresolved in court: whether that partnership disadvantages competing chatbots. Withdrawing against one of two defendants settles nothing about the other.
Limits of this report
Only one of the three available reports, the one from Der Standard, could be read in full. For the Golem item we had the summary paragraph alone, and the Spiegel piece could not be retrieved at all. We therefore cannot state the court, the docket number, or whether money changed hands, and we assert none of it. What stands is this: withdrawn against Apple, continuing against OpenAI, terms undisclosed.
FAQ
Did Musk settle with Apple?
The two sides reached an agreement and the Apple claim was withdrawn, but the terms were never published.
Is the case against OpenAI over too?
No. Only the Apple part was dropped; the claims against OpenAI remain on file.
What was Apple accused of?
Favoring ChatGPT in the App Store and, in doing so, holding back competing AI chatbots such as Grok.
