Elon Musk's X Corp has abruptly filed to dismiss Apple from its ongoing antitrust lawsuit regarding alleged App Store favoritism. The legal battle, originally launched by xAI to challenge Apple's partnership with OpenAI, has faced mounting complications and unfavorable rulings for Musk's legal team.
Tech industry analysts tracking App Store regulations will find this sudden pivot in the X Corp Apple lawsuit significant, as it signals a potential collapse of the anticompetitive claims against Apple. The September 14, 2026 filing requests only Apple's removal, leaving OpenAI to fight the remaining legal battle alone against the SpaceX-owned xAI.
The Flaws in the Favoritism Claim
The core of the lawsuit alleged that Apple gave preferential treatment to OpenAI following their June 2024 partnership. However, market data quickly contradicted these claims. According to app data aggregator SensorTower, multiple competing AI applications have successfully claimed the top spot on the App Store.
DeepSeek reached the number one position in January 2025, followed by Perplexity on July 18, 2025. Even Musk's own AI, Grok, peaked at the top of the App Store charts on February 18 and February 19, 2025, immediately after Grok-3 was made available for free.
Discovery Disputes and Executive Involvement
The case has moved at a sluggish pace since its inception in August 2025, plagued by severe discovery disputes. Musk's legal team was previously accused of destroying and withholding evidence, severely damaging their position in court.
Apple's leadership was also dragged into the proceedings. In May 2026, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, was appointed as a document custodian. A similar request for Apple CEO Tim Cook was denied by the court.
The Strategic Retreat to Avoid Scrutiny
The timing of this dismissal request is not a coincidence, especially following a recent judge's ruling that Musk's personal emails must be entered into the public record. By dropping Apple from the X Corp Apple lawsuit, Musk is likely attempting a strategic retreat to avoid the intense scrutiny of Apple's formidable legal department during the discovery phase.
Furthermore, isolating OpenAI allows xAI to focus its resources on its primary generative AI rival without fighting a two-front war against a trillion-dollar platform owner. While the exact reasons remain undisclosed, the data clearly shows that the App Store favoritism narrative was too weak to survive a full trial.
