Elon Musk Drops Apple From AI Lawsuit, Keeps Suing OpenAI

Last year, Elon Musk sued Apple and OpenAI over a simple-sounding deal: when you tap certain AI features on an iPhone, ChatGPT is the assistant doing the work. Musk argued that arrangement gave the two companies a stranglehold on AI in smartphones, shutting out rivals like his own chatbot, Grok. On Monday, he quietly dropped Apple from the lawsuit. But he is still suing OpenAI, and the case heads toward trial this fall.

Apple didn't walk away for free. A court recently ordered Apple to hand over internal messages in which its own employees discussed the ChatGPT partnership. Musk's lawyers can now use those documents to sharpen their argument that OpenAI used the iPhone deal to lock competitors out of the market. Both Apple and OpenAI have argued that Musk doesn't even make smartphones, so he has no legal standing to complain about the phone business.

The awkward twist: OpenAI says it got a raw deal too. Executives reportedly expected the iPhone partnership to bring in billions of dollars in new subscriptions, but Apple placed the feature so deep in its software that few people ever found it. OpenAI has publicly said it felt "burned" and even considered suing Apple itself. Apple has always insisted the deal was never exclusive — other chatbots were free to make similar arrangements.

For you, the practical question is simple: does your phone's AI button stay a ChatGPT button? If Musk wins, Apple could be forced to offer rival assistants — more choice, possibly cheaper or free options baked right in. If OpenAI wins, nothing changes. Either way, this fight is really about who gets to be the default AI brain sitting inside a billion pockets — and how much say you get in the matter.