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Elon Musk Suing Apple because Grok isn't #1 · Elon Musk Podcast

0:01
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
0:04
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
0:07
the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The
0:11
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
0:17
Elon Musk says that Apple is suppressing his new AI app and
0:20
he plans to sue them for it. Elon is suing Apple.
0:25
He's CEO of XAI, and he claims that Apple is manipulating App
0:29
Store rankings to demote his company's chatbot Crock XAI,
0:34
even as user downloads and engagement climbs, according to
0:38
his statistics. Now this accusation has
0:42
escalated into a public legal threat by Musk.
0:45
He warned them the formal action could come within days.
0:50
Now Musk made that announcement on X, claiming that Apple
0:54
artificially dropped Croc's ranking despite what he called a
0:57
massive surge in downloads. He insisted that Croc briefly
1:00
became the number one app in the US App Store this week, but that
1:03
Apple manually moved it down, favoring its own or rival apps.
1:08
He described this as blatant antitrust violation and said
1:13
legal filings are imminent unless Apple reverses the
1:15
ranking adjustment. Another claim follows the August
1:18
10th launch of Grok as a stand alone iOS app, and until now
1:21
Grok had been integrated directly into X for Premium Plus
1:24
subscribers, and the new app places XAI in direct competition
1:28
with other AI chat box like Open AI's ChatGPT and Google's
1:33
Gemini. With hours of release, Grok rose
1:36
in the App Store's charts and Musk's team expected it to hold
1:39
his position. But it didn't happen.
1:42
Musk said that Apple's team manually adjusted the App Store
1:46
rankings shortly after Grok hit the top spot.
1:49
He provided absolutely no technical data, but he cited
1:54
internal XAI download analytics, showing a sharp upward trend
1:57
that he said did not match the apps sudden ranking drop.
2:01
He did not specify which Apple apps or partners allegedly
2:04
benefited from this adjustment. Now, let's play devil's advocate
2:08
here. Elon's app rose dramatically for
2:11
a short amount of time. And during this short amount of
2:14
time, could there have been another app in the App Store
2:18
adjacent Elon's app? You know, ChatGPT just released
2:21
a new GPT 5. So could there have been a spike
2:28
in ChatGPT downloads at the same time and ChatGPT just overtook
2:33
Grok? Because it has, you know, it has
2:35
more media behind it. It has more staying power.
2:39
People know more about chatty BT than they do Grok.
2:43
It's just a fact. It's all over the place.
2:46
But could that have been the case?
2:48
And could it not have been artificial?
2:50
Could Apple not have pushed Grok down and Elon just got beat in
2:56
the rankings? I'm just playing devil's
2:57
advocate. Just putting something out there
2:59
so you can think about it. So there's been sources that are
3:02
close to XAI. They said they're already the
3:06
legal team is already preparing A complaint focused on US
3:09
antitrust law, particularly around self preferencing
3:13
behavior in Apple's App Store. They're also examining Apple's
3:16
app ranking algorithms to build a case that Apple exerts undue
3:20
influence over visibility for competitive products.
3:23
The potential lawsuit could cite historical regulatory scrutiny
3:26
into Apple's handling of App Store search and discovery
3:29
systems, which have been criticized in past
3:32
investigations. Now, Musk's statement added
3:37
pressure by claiming the issue could soon involve international
3:41
regulators. He framed the incident as more
3:43
than just a private dispute and urged global authorities to
3:46
investigate how Apple curates App Store rankings for AI apps
3:50
now. That framing aligns with earlier
3:52
claims he made about Apple's partnership with Open AI, which
3:55
he has repeatedly described as dangerous and mana ballistic.
4:01
So the acquisition also come in the middle of Musk's larger
4:04
public feud with Apple and Open AI.
4:07
Of course, he hates the owner or the CEO of ChatGPT.
4:14
Apple announced it would embed ChatGPT into Siri and other iOS
4:17
features, triggering backlash from Elon Musk, who pledged to
4:20
ban Apple devices from his. Companies claim the integration
4:23
would compromise user security and warn employees at Tesla,
4:27
SpaceX and X that they would need to surrender Apple products
4:30
at the door if the deal went through.
4:33
Now the rival. A rivalry has put Apple and XAI
4:36
on a collision course, especially as AI assistants
4:38
become core to smartphone operating systems and XAI
4:41
executives believe that Apple's control of the App Store allows
4:44
allows it to distort market competition at a curriculum
4:47
moment when consumers are just beginning to explore third party
4:51
AI tools. The lawsuit, that's if they
4:53
actually file it, would have legal weight complaints many
4:56
smaller developers have raised for years.
4:59
In the discovery phase, Apple would have to release all of
5:03
their analytics for AI apps. They'd have to release
5:06
everything from the inception of the app getting accepted into
5:11
the Apple Store. I've had numerous apps be
5:14
accepted into the Apple Store. And when you do that, your, your
5:19
app is checked out by people, They make sure it's fine, make
5:24
sure everything works well. And then they add it to the
5:27
Apple store. And pretty quickly after that,
5:30
you can see your, your analytics start to rise.
5:34
I've had a few apps that are, that were trending in the
5:40
entertainment sector. I also had them on the Android
5:44
store back in the day. I had, OK, so this is a funny
5:47
one. I had an app called the Justin
5:51
Bieber Farter app. OK, this is just me being like,
5:55
I just goofed around one night and I developed this.
5:57
I thought it was funny. You pushed on Justin Bieber a
5:59
picture of Justin Bieber's belly or Justin Bieber, you pressed on
6:02
his belly and he would make a fart noise.
6:04
And it was just a random Farter noise, right?
6:08
And at one point it was, you know, I was making a good side
6:14
hustle from the money that I was making for this Farter app.
6:18
I think it was $0.99 to download.
6:20
And people loved it. So I made a few others and they
6:22
tanked. But the Justin Bieber 1 was
6:24
pretty popular. So let's make a little side
6:27
hustle. I think I, I think I made a
6:29
little side hustle from it. I'm not sure if that's true.
6:31
So OK, so just you know, I'm sure I can look up the stats and
6:35
find out, but I made a little bit of money from it.
6:37
I don't know if that was the one that was my side hustle, that it
6:40
was a long time ago, like 15 years ago or something.
6:42
So that was a long, long time ago.
6:44
But even back then, you could literally see your analytics
6:49
within minutes of like sending your app up to the App Store.
6:54
And I'm sure Elon Musk has seen the same thing.
6:57
He saw his apps. Of course mine was not on the
7:00
scale of Elon. Of course.
7:02
I mean the Justin Bieber Farter app wouldn't be on the same
7:05
scale as something from Elon and XAI and Grok and X.
7:09
Nothing like that or or chat TPT.
7:12
But he could see his stats improve over time.
7:16
Shoot straight up because one, he has multiple millions of
7:20
people following on X who he can blast something out to and like
7:26
tell them that the the app is live, go download it and he has
7:30
so many fans that of course they're going to go download it.
7:34
You know, millions of people probably downloaded the app
7:37
immediately, hundreds of thousands immediately.
7:39
And of course, Elon takes that as you know, he has the top
7:44
spot, which of course he probably did.
7:46
He probably did have the top spot for a little bit.
7:49
And you know, like I was saying, does it coincide with the Chat
7:52
GPTG PT-5 release? And does it coincide with other
7:57
chat bots releases or something like, you know, Claude or
8:04
something? Maybe there was a, a release of
8:06
something else at that point. So we're not 100% sure.
8:09
I don't know the statistics of when he released the app and
8:13
what timing it was or what other apps were released at the time
8:16
or anything like that. So we're going to take it with a
8:19
grain of salt what he's saying. And also, Apple has not
8:22
responded to Elon Musk's threats.
8:24
Of course they didn't because they're a giant company.
8:27
They have to get their lawyers involved.
8:30
They're not going to directly engage Elon Musk at this point.
8:34
Elon Musk has a way of saying things that is very harsh and
8:38
very straightforward and straight to the point.
8:41
Apple has a more subdued take on things.
8:45
They're pointing to developer guides and ranking policies that
8:49
rely on user behavior, download velocity, and also retention.
8:54
Those are the three things that Apple says are important to
8:58
climb the charts. They basically have an
9:00
algorithm. The algo tells you what about
9:03
the user behavior? Are they downloading things?
9:05
How fast are they downloading? You know, do you have 10
9:09
downloads per second or do you have 100 downloads per second?
9:13
Does that waiver, you know, do you have, you know, how many,
9:17
how many downloads do you have in the first hour?
9:20
And if that spikes, that's great.
9:21
But if it tips in the second hour, the algorithm goes maybe
9:25
people don't like it as much. So, you know, there's download
9:29
philosophy, behavior and retention.
9:30
Also like how many people actually open the app?
9:33
If they download it, what do they do with it?
9:36
You know, Apple has also defended its right to curate
9:39
Apple Store content based on internal ranking algorithms and
9:42
performance thresholds. So with the Apple user
9:46
agreement, I've seen this numerous times because I've had
9:49
to read these things and because I've developed apps.
9:53
They do say this. They're they do have internal
9:57
rankings, they have performance thresholds.
9:59
And even with podcasts, they do the same thing.
10:03
So if you are a popular podcast and this podcast has been in the
10:06
top 20 in the top 15 of technology podcasts before and
10:09
it's usually in the top 50, the rankings.
10:14
It's it is velocity. It is like if you get a killer,
10:19
one killer episode, it has a Halo effect on all your other
10:22
episodes. People might subscribe to your
10:25
show and that boosts you up a little bit.
10:27
People think, you know, Apple podcast doesn't have an
10:30
algorithm, but they definitely do and it's in their terms of
10:34
service. So there's a, you know, the
10:37
public nature of Musk accusation has triggered speculation
10:41
throughout the Internet. You know, they need to prove
10:47
deliberate manipulation from Apple.
10:49
They need to, of course, in the discovery phase, if they do
10:52
bring this to court, if Apple doesn't just settle with Elon,
10:55
which they probably won't, they have a, you know, they have all
10:57
the money in the world, so they won't side with Elon and they're
11:00
not going to, you know, they're not going to probably settle
11:05
with him. But also if they go to
11:07
discovery, Elon's lawyers may make them distribute their
11:16
algorithm to the outside world, which is not good.
11:21
So if other people find out how the algorithm works, they can
11:25
manipulate it. And that's not what Apple wants.
11:29
So we're going to see how this works out.
11:32
You know, there's the App Store rankings are shaped by multiple
11:35
variables, download rate, session duration too, and also
11:40
user reviews. So if you had a download rate
11:42
that was super high, but your session duration was very low,
11:47
you know, the download rate would be how fast X amount of
11:52
people download the app, right? Like if you had a million people
11:56
download your app in the first day, that's great, but if only
12:00
50,000 of them opened it up or, you know, opened it up for a
12:05
long, you know, like a long amount of time, the session
12:08
duration is very low. It's called audience retention,
12:12
right? So you can see that if it was
12:17
downloaded that many times and it wasn't used, then they're not
12:21
going to keep pushing it through the algorithm because no one's
12:24
using the app actually. So why would they keep promoting
12:26
it? And also user reviews, you know,
12:29
if everybody's giving it a five star review, that's great.
12:32
But if people are saying one star review and review bombing
12:35
it as ones, of course it's going to fall off.
12:39
So unless XAI can produce internal Apple communications or
12:43
clear anomalies and ranking logic, the case is going to be
12:48
very difficult to win. And that's all going to happen
12:51
in the discovery phase. So Musk has made it clear he's
12:55
willing to take the fight public to He has all the money to do
12:58
it, too. He doesn't care.
12:59
He warned that Apple's behavior damages fair access to markets
13:02
and sends a message that competing with Apple carries
13:05
consequences. He framed the threat of legal
13:07
action as necessary to protect AI innovation from being crushed
13:11
by what he sees as dominant gatekeepers.
13:16
Now, some people think that Elon is a jealous type of person.
13:21
He's a very, let's let's just say dominant personality, and he
13:26
always wants to win. And if he doesn't win, he sues
13:29
people. If he doesn't get his way, he
13:30
sues people. He feels that a legal argument
13:35
is the best way to win. And maybe he is doing this for
13:39
the right reasons. Maybe he does have some internal
13:42
information that shows something that Apple isn't ready to show
13:48
us. Maybe he does have some some
13:52
documentation from his analytics that show that people not only
13:55
downloaded the app at a record rate, but opened it up and used
14:00
it for a long amount of time and also gave a five star ratings.
14:04
Maybe Elon has that, maybe he has that.
14:09
So I'm going to look this up live right now as we're doing
14:11
this. Let's see if if we can do this.
14:16
So this is, this is the thing that we usually don't do AI
14:20
assistant, they have 4.9 stars right now #2 in productivity.
14:26
So they're #2 they're not number one, but they're number 2IN
14:28
productivity at this point, right behind ChatGPT.
14:32
So the things that Elon was talking about, and this is for
14:36
the iPhone, for the iPad, Let's find out if he's even up there.
14:39
If if Grok is even on there, it's ChatGPT, good notes and
14:43
then top free iPad apps. The good notes, the Netflix
14:48
notability, Prime Video, those are the top apps in general for
14:56
you know, for the iPad and the top charts for free apps.
15:01
Grok is still number six. So it's chat GBTT on her dating
15:08
advice, whatever that is T dating advice, Threads parent
15:13
Square and then Grok. So and that's just the top free
15:18
app. So Grok is the top 6, which is
15:20
really great. Threads is 4, which very
15:24
surprising to me. I didn't think Threads was that
15:27
popular, but it's funny that Threads is also beating another
15:33
one of Elon's companies at this point.
15:36
So, yeah, but it's really strange.
15:38
And this is in the United States at 8:40 AM.
15:42
And then all the Google 7, you know, 10/11/12, you know, Google
15:47
Apps, Maps, Chrome, Gmail, TikTok is number 13.
15:54
Yeah. So I don't, I don't see this
15:56
chord, you know, I don't see Elon's app.
15:58
Oh, X is #38X is 38. That's wild.
16:06
And then threads is 4. That's crazy.
16:10
So threads is 4X is 38 OK that this race very weird to me
16:19
because I didn't expect threads to be that big then what?
16:21
Not cap cut, TikTok, things like that.
16:25
So Elon's in good company. He's in the top six with Crock.
16:28
We'll see how it works out for him.
16:30
Hopefully he can figure out why he's not top free app on Apple
16:37
App Store. But I mean, it's still pretty
16:39
good. Top six.
16:41
Let me know in the comments of whatever podcast app you're on
16:43
right now. Do you think it's good for Grok
16:46
to be in the top 6? I think it's great.
16:48
It's getting millions of downloads, probably 4.9 stars.
16:51
Let's read a couple of these reviews.
16:55
Let's see. Bloody amazing.
16:57
When I got the review request, I was right in the middle of doing
17:00
something in the Grok app. I asked Grap how I could import
17:04
a lot of PDF copies. Ham radio I still have from the
17:07
80s and 90s. I asked how I could create a
17:10
model that would answer questions about ham radio.
17:13
Grock not only gave me the answers of how to do it, but it
17:15
used examples within its answer that a ham radio operator might
17:18
use. Like what's the length of an
17:20
antenna for 20? OK, so 55 stars.
17:25
JWMC, man, I think, I mean, we're trying to, we're trying to
17:29
solve this, right? I see five stars across the
17:31
board. Oh, here's a three star listens
17:37
to your private conversations. Great app, except for new
17:40
microphone features. Several times over the past
17:42
several weeks, while using the app in text mode, grok suddenly,
17:45
without warning switches to microphone mode and starts
17:49
glibly commenting on private conversations it is overhearing
17:53
that I'm having with an actual human.
17:55
This most often happens when holding phone in left hand and
17:59
using a left thumb to Scroll down by swiping up.
18:02
My use of left thumb scrolling became a habit because the
18:07
horrible UI design puts a jump to bottom icon directly in path
18:11
of right thumb scrolling hitting it.
18:13
OK, I oh here we go. I discovered the cause.
18:18
Left thumb forward scrolling can apparently be seen as a left
18:22
swipe by some hidden goblin deep inside Grok.
18:27
Apparently the Grok app is treating this as a mic on
18:30
request. All other iPhone level gestures
18:34
turned off never used them for exactly this reason.
18:37
The left swiped open mic is not documented and there's no option
18:39
to disable the gesture or remove mic privileges from the app
18:42
until it's fixed. OK, so we have a few three
18:47
stars, and here's another one because the five stars are just
18:50
glowing reviews and we all know that those are going to be
18:52
great. So here's this one by recruiter
18:55
Ray. I am in a tough place trying to
18:57
figure out how to best invest my time and money.
19:00
In one sense, I'm paying the $30 monthly for ChatGPT premium
19:03
already and generally pretty happy.
19:05
With that said, I was intrigued by the performance specs of Grok
19:08
plus I like Elon Musk. I started using it, would often
19:11
compare the results from Grok 3 and ChatGPT 4.
19:13
Frankly, I sometimes get annoyed by Grok's casual slang like
19:17
responses. If I want a super casual
19:19
unprofessional response and I'll prompt for it.
19:21
But I prefer the default to be clean and crisp.
19:24
Also, I found Grok 3 to be somewhat critical, bordering
19:26
cynical of some topics. But I have priced the same with
19:30
Chacha PT on occasion as well. OK, so they're basically saying
19:36
they don't like the way that it's just chill and it talks
19:38
like, you know, one of your buddies.
19:40
It's chilling. So there's there's a couple.
19:47
So there's not that many reviews either.
19:49
So there's, OK, so people haven't written reviews,
19:53
apparently not that many, but there are five star people that
19:57
go to five stars but haven't written anything yet.
19:59
Four 488,000 rankings for that. And we're just trying to do a
20:03
little bit of sleuthing here. So Grok has a lot of ratings.
20:07
Let's go back to ChatGPT. 3.4 million ratings and Elon thinks
20:15
his chat app is more powerful. So I was like, OK, so they're
20:22
like not a lot of people did the ratings for for Croc, right?
20:27
And so 3.4 million ratings for ChatGPT, everything is four or
20:32
five stars, 4.9 out of five with four, 3.4 million ratings.
20:36
That is incredible. 3/28/2025 you know four 27531 let's see
20:47
there's 527 let's see let's do a four-star because that's one of
20:50
the ones here. I recently downloaded the app
20:52
and overall it's a great platform with excellent
20:54
potential. However, I did encounter a
20:56
couple of issues with logging in that I feel need to be
20:58
addressed. This could be approved by
21:01
streamlining the login flow. I do hope the developers take
21:04
note of the login challenges and work on improving the aspect of
21:07
the app. In conclusion, while the app has
21:09
its share of login issues, it still holds promise.
21:11
I'm optimistic that updates what happened, etcetera, etcetera.
21:16
So it seems like not only Grok doesn't have as many ratings,
21:25
488,000 ratings, so not even a million, like not even half a
21:29
million ratings compared to ChatGPT, but most of them are
21:35
like they're OK, you know, like it's 4.9% or 4.9 stars.
21:41
So they're good ratings, but not as many as ChatGPT.
21:45
So I can see where where Apple is like, look, ChatGPT is way
21:50
more how many downloads does it get per per like minute, you
21:53
know, And also the rankings are super high.
21:57
So yeah, it's it seems like one of those things that it's just
22:06
going to be left up to Elon to prove some prove his information
22:10
on this thing. Let me know what you think.
22:12
I want to know if you have comments on your podcast app.
22:15
Let me know what you think about this.
22:16
Because if Elon has a problem with it, he's going to have to
22:19
prove it in court. And if he can prove it in court,
22:24
he could steer public in regulatory oversight for app
22:30
stores even more than it already has.
22:34
So he's already reshaped policies and sectors from like
22:39
AI use in automobiles, like self driving, also direct to consumer
22:46
auto sales, things like that. Digital advertising too.
22:49
He's reshaped all of those policies just from saying this
22:54
isn't fair. I'm going to take you to court
22:55
and then the, you know, take either governments or companies
22:59
to court. And if he wins, he can reshape
23:02
these policies. Now, if he follows through with
23:05
this, it will be up to Apple to prove that they are in the right
23:14
here. It's also up to Elon to prove
23:18
that Apple is in the wrong. So we're going to see how this
23:21
plays out. This is going to be a real
23:22
really wild one. But yeah, let me know what you
23:26
think. Hey, thank you so much for
23:28
listening today. I really do appreciate your
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support. If you could take a second and
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hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
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And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
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caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
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support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero.
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And please take care of yourselves and each other.
23:57
And I'll see you tomorrow.