Apple has asked for Elon Musk's specious lawsuit over it partnering with OpenAI, to be entirely dismissed.

If Elon Musk is to be believed, he is convinced that once Apple partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to Apple Intelligence, that locked out any other AI company. He has sued because that the deal means allegedly neither his Grok nor any other AI chatbot is treated fairly by Apple.

Now according to Bloomberg, Apple has filed a court request asking for the case to be dismissed. The filing says that while Apple partnered with OpenAI, it is "widely known that Apple intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots."

Musk's childish lawsuit does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny, but there is an argument that its existence could conceivably be a problem for Apple. But Apple's lawyers have necessarily scrutinized the suit and claim that it is based on "speculation on top of speculation."

Specifically, Apple says that Musk's suit claims that the company cannot partner with ChatGPT, "without simultaneously partnering with every other generative AI chatbot — regardless of quality, privacy or safety considerations, technical feasibility, stage of development, or commercial terms."

Having summarized Musk's case with this, the lawyers added: "Of course, the antitrust laws do not require that."

Why Musk sued

Really the answer to why Musk sued is probably petulance, which is a peculiar accusation to make of a company CEO, but describes many of his other actions. It's likely that he sees Apple as a good target for PR and for raising the profile of his Grok AI system.

But he's tried to be specific, and alleged that since the deal with OpenAI took place, Apple has manipulated its App Store ratings to ensure no other chatbot can top the charts. Instantly, users on Twitter pointed out the dates when Perplexity and DeepSeek have headed the list and been promoted by Apple.

Then another user asked Grok about manipulation of algorithms, and it said that Elon Musk does exactly that.

This is not the first time the Musk has accused Apple of what he sees as unfair treatment. In 2022, he claimed that Apple was threatening to remove Twitter from the App Store, and got politicians to back him.

That situation was resolved — in fact, entirely abandoned — later in the same year after Tim Cook gave Musk a guided tour of Apple Park.