Elon Musk expressed dissatisfaction with a new partnership between Apple and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
In a post on X Monday, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) stated that he would prohibit Apple (AAPL) devices at his companies, including SpaceX and X, among others, if the iPhone maker proceeded with its AI plans announced on Monday.
If Apple “integrates OpenAI at the (operating system) level,” Musk said that would constitute “an unacceptable security violation.”
He added that visitors “will have to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage,” referring to an enclosure that blocks electromagnetic waves crucial to communications, including cellular, wireless internet and Bluetooth signals.
“Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI,” Musk said in a separate post. “They’re selling you down the river.”
Musk’s comments came hours after Apple unveiled the partnership with OpenAI at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, part of a wider push to bring generative artificial intelligence tools to Apple products.
Under a new “Apple Intelligence” system, AI will be used to produce a smarter Siri voice assistant and deliver more personalized tools to users. OpenAI’s technology will support some of these new tools — for example, allowing users to direct questions to ChatGPT via their Apple devices.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI president, said late Monday that ChatGPT would be integrated into Apple’s operating systems for iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. “We’re partnering with Apple to integrate ChatGPT right into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Will be available later this year, very excited!” he posted on X.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, now leads a competing firm named xAI. He has a strained relationship with his former company and its CEO Sam Altman, and is currently suing them both, alleging breaches of OpenAI’s founding agreement and deviation from its nonprofit mission.
OpenAI has dismissed these claims as “frivolous,” “extraordinary,” and “a fiction” in legal filings. They have separately suggested that Musk is envious of the company’s success since he is no longer involved.
Considering Musk’s history of unfulfilled promises and bold threats, it remains uncertain whether he will enforce a ban on Apple devices, or potentially expand it to include other brands.
For instance, Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google and Samsung have already integrated new AI features into Android devices. Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor, announced three weeks ago that it would directly integrate AI features into Windows.
Therefore, Musk’s employees may face limited options if he decides to ban rival AI, including OpenAI, from his companies. However, Microsoft has faced privacy concerns and said on Friday that it would turn off some AI features by default.
“Apple’s AI approach is actually more privacy conscious than others, with its aim to process as much on the device as possible and with a fallback that explicitly asks users before sending information to OpenAI,” said Catherine Flick, professor of ethics and games technology at Staffordshire University in England.
“It remains to be seen how that workflow ends up being used in practice, but this just feels like sour grapes from Musk who runs a competing AI company that was not given the lucrative Apple contract.”
OpenAI has become one of the companies leading the development of generative AI. Apple, meanwhile, has lagged behind competitors, including Google and Microsoft (MSFT), which have moved more quickly to articulate an AI strategy.
Apple’s partnership with OpenAI could help the iPhone maker close that gap and accelerate its move into a technology that holds enormous potential.
“This is a key moment for Apple, which has struggled with innovation of late,” Matt Britzman, an equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote in a note Tuesday. “Integrating a third-party tool like ChatGPT finally gets things moving, while leaving space to develop internal models over the next few years at much lower costs than the first movers.”
