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