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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has sued Apple and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, accusing them of illegally conspiring to thwart competition for artificial intelligence (AI).

The lawsuit filed in a United States federal court in Texas on Monday says that Apple and OpenAI have “locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing”.

The complaint filed by the billionaire said Apple and OpenAI conspired to suppress xAI’s products, including on the Apple App Store. “If not for its exclusive deal with OpenAI, Apple would have no reason to refrain from more prominently featuring the X app and the Grok app in its App Store,” xAI said.

The lawsuit pointed out that in June 2024, Apple and OpenAI announced they would integrate ChatGPT into Apple’s operating system under an exclusive arrangement.

“OpenAI’s exclusive arrangement has made ChatGPT the only generative AI chatbot integrated into the iPhone. This means that if iPhone users want to use a generative AI chatbot for key tasks on their devices, they have no choice but to use ChatGPT, even if they would prefer to use more innovative and imaginative products like xAI’s Grok,” the lawsuit alleged.

Apple holds 65 percent of the smartphone market share.

The Silicon Valley tech giant and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this month, Musk threatened to sue Cupertino, California-based Apple, saying in a post on his social media platform X that Apple’s behaviour “makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store”.

Apple’s partnership with OpenAI has integrated its AI platform ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.

“This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X on the heels of Musk’s remarks earlier this month.

Musk does have a longstanding history of going after companies that are a bane to his side. The billionaire sued several brands, including Lego and Nestle, that stopped advertising on X amid hostile rhetoric on the platform.

Musk’s xAI acquired X in March for $33bn to enhance its chatbot training capabilities. Musk also has integrated the Grok chatbot into vehicles made by his electric automobile company, Tesla.

Musk’s xAI was launched less than two years ago and competes with Microsoft-backed OpenAI as well as with Chinese startup DeepSeek.

Musk is separately suing OpenAI and its CEO Altman in federal court in California to stop its conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit business. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit.

Apple’s App Store practices have been the focus of multiple lawsuits. In one ongoing case by Fortnite video game maker Epic Games, a judge ordered Apple to allow greater competition for app payment options.

On Wall Street, Apple’s stock is not responding to the lawsuit, and is still up 0.6 percent for the day. OpenAI, however, is not publicly traded, nor is xAI. However, Musk’s other venture, Tesla, is up 1.2 percent as of 12pm in New York (16:00 GMT).

The United States government’s 10 percent stake in Intel could harm international sales for the semiconductor chip giant.

The company said in a securities filing on Monday that the new agreement could limit its ability to secure future government grants as White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said that the US could take an equity stake in other companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) and chip industries. That could include Advanced Micro Devices or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Sales outside the US accounted for 76 percent of Intel’s revenue for the fiscal year that ended in December 2024. Though 29 percent of that came from China, the company is pressing on with the deal.

“I think this is a very, very special circumstance because of the massive amount of CHIPS Act spending that was coming Intel’s way,” Hassett told CNBC in an interview on Monday.

“I’m sure that at some point, there’ll be more transactions, if not in this industry, in other industries.”

In the US legislation to which Hassett was referring, CHIPS stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors”.

Echoing Hassett’s comments, US President Donald Trump said in a post on his social media platform: “I WILL MAKE DEALS LIKE THAT FOR OUR COUNTRY ALL DAY LONG.”

Trump’s deal with the struggling Silicon Valley tech giant came after a meeting with CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Trump had previously demanded his resignation due to his previous investments in Chinese firms.

As part of the looming deal, which is expected to close as early as Tuesday, the US government will buy Intel shares with $5.7bn in unpaid grants from the CHIPS Act passed by President Joe Biden in 2022. A further $3.2bn will be awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave programme — created by Biden under CHIPS.

“To the maximum extent permissible under applicable law”, Intel’s obligations under the CHIPS Act will be considered discharged, barring the Secure Enclave programme, according to the securities filing that lays out new risk factors.

The company also said that the shares to be issued to the US government at a discount to the current market price are dilutive to existing stockholders.

The government is purchasing Intel shares at a $4 discount to Intel’s closing stock price of $24.80 on Friday.

The government’s stake also reduces the voting influence of other stockholders, while its substantial additional powers over laws and regulations impacting Intel may limit Intel’s ability to pursue transactions that benefit shareholders, the filing said.

Trump added that “stupid people” are upset by the deal, which he said will bring more jobs and money to the US economy.

But the deal comes on the heels of wide layoffs at Intel. Last month, the company announced that it would cut roughly 25,000 jobs by the end of 2025.

While semiconductors have been exempt from tariffs, because of economic uncertainty, customers have been wary of buying Intel’s products. In late July, Intel reported a 3 percent decline in chip sales for the second quarter compared to the same period last year.

On Wall Street, however, Intel stock is surging — up about 1.2 percent as of 10:15am in New York (14:15 GMT)

The United States government will take a 10 percent stake in Intel under an agreement with the struggling chipmaker, President Donald Trump has said, marking the latest extraordinary intervention in corporate affairs.

The US agreed to purchase a 9.9 percent stake in Intel for $8.9bn at a price of $20.47 a share, which is a discount of about $4 per share from Intel’s closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.

The government will buy the 433.3 million shares with funding from the $5.7bn in unpaid CHIPS Act grants and $3.2bn awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave program.

Intel shares dropped 1.2 percent in extended trading on Friday.

Trump is set to meet CEO Lip-Bu Tan later on Friday, a White House official said.

The development follows a meeting between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Trump earlier this month that was sparked by Trump’s demand for the Intel chief’s resignation over his ties to Chinese firms.

“He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10bn for the United States,” Trump said on Friday.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X that the deal had been completed. “The United States of America now owns 10% of Intel,” he wrote, saying Tan had struck a deal “that’s fair to Intel and fair to the American People.”

While Trump did not provide details on the $10bn, the equity stake is about equal to the amount Intel is set to receive in CHIPS Act grants from the government to help fund the building of chip plants in the US.

Change in direction

The move marks a clear change of direction and also follows a $2bn capital injection from SoftBank Group in what was a major vote of confidence for the troubled US chipmaker in the middle of a turnaround.

Federal backing could give Intel more breathing room to revive its loss-making foundry business, analysts said, but it still suffers from a weak product roadmap and challenges in attracting customers to its new factories.

Trump, who met Tan on August 11, has taken an unprecedented approach to national security. But critics worry Trump’s actions create new categories of corporate risk.

The US president has pushed for multibillion-dollar government tie-ups in semiconductors and rare earths, such as a pay-for-play deal with Nvidia and an arrangement with rare-earth producer MP Materials to secure critical minerals.

Tan, who took the top job at Intel in March, has been tasked to turn around the US chipmaking icon, which recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024 — its first such loss since 1986. The company’s last fiscal year of positive adjusted free cash flow was 2021.

Earlier this week, US Senator Bernie Sanders supported the plan. He and Senator Elizabeth Warren had previously said that the US Treasury Department should receive a warrant, equity stake or senior debt instrument from any company that receives government grants like Intel had under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost US domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.

United States Senator Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind US President Donald Trump’s plan to convert US grants to chipmakers, including $10.9bn for Intel, into government stakes in the companies.

The senator for the state of Vermont announced his support on Wednesday.

“If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement to the Reuters news agency.

The awards were part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost American domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.

The acronym CHIPS in the name of the legislation stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors”.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is now looking into the government taking equity stakes in embattled Intel and other chipmakers in exchange for the grants as the Trump administration seeks “equity” in return for “investments”.

Rare bipartisanship

The unusual alignment between Sanders and Trump on government ownership stakes in private companies highlights a marked shift by Trump toward policies of state intervention in the economy that are typically associated with the left.

Since Trump took office for a second time in January, he agreed to allow AI chip giants Nvidia and AMD to sell AI chips to China in exchange for the US government receiving 15 percent of revenues from the sales.

The Pentagon is also set to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company to boost the output of rare earth magnets. And the US government negotiated for itself a “golden share” with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy US Steel.

Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, had proposed an amendment to the CHIPS Act that would have forbidden the Commerce Department from granting a CHIPS Act award without the Treasury Department receiving a warrant, equity stake or senior debt instrument issued by the recipient company.

“I am glad the Trump administration is in agreement with the amendment I offered three years ago,” Sanders said. “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”

Much of the funding for CHIPS Act award recipients such as Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung has not been disbursed.

Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the US, which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the US will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Earlier this month, Trump called on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign.

The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan’s past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump has since backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the US to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story”.

This comes as Intel is also in talks with other large investors to receive an equity infusion at a discounted price just days after the chipmaker got a $2bn capital injection from the SoftBank Group, according to CNBC.

On Wall Street, investors have not responded well to the government’s potential new role. Intel stock is down 7.1 percent from the market open as of 1:30pm in New York (17:30 GMT).

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the US government wants an equity stake in Intel in exchange for cash grants approved during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Separately, also on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any US investment in Intel would be aimed at helping the troubled chipmaker stabilise.

Asked about reports that the US was considering taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” programme: “The stake would be a conversion of the grants and maybe increase the investment into Intel to help stabilise the company for chip production here in the US.”

Bessent gave no details about the size or timing of any US stake in Intel, but said any investment would not be aimed at forcing US companies to buy chips from Intel.

Bessent’s comments were the first official response from the Trump administration after Bloomberg News reported on Monday that the US government is in talks to take a 10 percent Intel stake in exchange for $7.9bn in grants that were approved for the US chip company during the Biden administration.

‘Not governance’

“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick told CNBC. “We’ll get equity in return for that … instead of just giving grants away.”

Lutnick said the US does not want control of the company.

“It’s not governance, we are just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration for the American people.” He suggested any stake would be “non-voting,” meaning it would not enable the US government to tell the company how to run its business.

He made his comments a day after SoftBank Group agreed to invest $2bn into the chipmaker, which has struggled to compete after years of management blunders.

“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel money for free and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving the money for free, and Donald Trump turned it into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action for the American taxpayer,’” Lutnick said.

Intel and TSMC, a Taiwan-based chipmaker, did not immediately comment.

Intel helped launch Silicon Valley, but has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc and is shedding thousands of workers and slashing costs under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. It recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024, its first such loss since 1986.

Intel plans to end the year with 75,000 “core” workers, excluding subsidiaries, through layoffs and attrition, down from 99,500 core employees at the end of 2024. The company previously announced a 15 percent workforce reduction.

Trump recently said Tan, who was made CEO in March, should resign. But after meeting with him last week, Trump relented, saying Tan had an “amazing story”.

Google has agreed to pay 55 million Australian dollars ($ 35.8m) in fines after the country’s consumer watchdog found it harmed competition by paying the country’s two largest telecommunications companies to pre-install its search application on Android phones, excluding rival search engines.

The fine extends a bumpy period for the Alphabet-owned internet giant in Australia, where last week a court mostly ruled against it in a lawsuit brought by Fortnite maker Epic Games, accusing Google and Apple of preventing rival application stores in their operating systems.

Google’s YouTube was also added to an Australian ban on social media platforms last month admitting users aged under 16, reversing an earlier decision to exempt the video-sharing site.

On anti-competitive tie-ups with Australian telcos, the country’s consumer watchdog on Monday said Google struck deals with Telstra and Optus, under which the tech giant shared with them advertising revenue generated from Google Search on Android devices between late 2019 and early 2021.

Google admitted the arrangement had a substantial effect on competition from rival search engines, and has stopped signing similar deals while also agreeing to the fine, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) added.

“Today’s outcome … created the potential for millions of Australians to have greater search choice in the future, and for competing search providers to gain meaningful exposure to Australian consumers,” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

Joint submission

Google and the ACCC have jointly submitted to the Federal Court that Google should pay the 55 million Australian dollar fine.

The court must still decide if the penalty is appropriate, the ACCC said, but the cooperation between the regulator and Google has helped avoid lengthy litigation.

A Google spokesperson said the company was pleased to resolve the ACCC’s concerns, which involved “provisions that haven’t been in our commercial agreements for some time”.

“We are committed to providing Android device makers more flexibility to pre-load browsers and search apps, while preserving the offerings and features that help them innovate, compete with Apple, and keep costs low,” the spokesperson added.

Google owns Android.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is in talks with Intel to have the US government potentially take a stake in the chipmaker.

Intel’s shares surged more than 7 percent in regular trading and then another 2.6 percent after the bell on Thursday, following Bloomberg News’ initial report of the potential deal, which cited people familiar with the plan.

It is unclear what size stake the federal government will take, but Bloomberg reports that the deal will help “shore up” a planned factory in Ohio that has been delayed.

The plan stems from a meeting this week between Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, the report said.

Tan also met Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“The meeting was a very interesting one,” Trump said on Truth Social on Monday, adding that his cabinet members and Tan are going to spend time together and bring suggestions to him during the next week.

The meeting came after Trump publicly demanded the resignation of Tan over his past investments in Chinese tech companies, some linked to the Chinese military.

Intel declined to comment on the report but said it was deeply committed to supporting Trump’s efforts to strengthen US technology and manufacturing leadership.

“Discussion about hypothetical deals should be regarded as speculation unless officially announced by the administration,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.

The details of the stake and price are still being discussed, according to the report.

Struggling business

Any agreement and potential cash infusion will help the years-long efforts to turn around the company’s fortunes. Once the undisputed leader in chip manufacturing, Intel has lost its position in recent years.

The chipmaker’s stock market value has plummeted to $104bn from $288bn in 2020.

Intel’s profit margins – once the envy of the industry – are also at about half their historical highs.

Tan has been tasked to undo years of missteps that left Intel struggling to make inroads in the booming AI chip industry dominated by Nvidia, while investment-heavy contract manufacturing ambitions led to heavy losses.

Any agreement would likely help Intel build out its planned chip complex in Ohio, Bloomberg reported.

Intel’s planned $28bn chip fabrication plants in Ohio have been delayed, with the first unit now slated for completion in 2030 and operations to begin between 2030 and 2031, pushing the timeline back by at least five years.

Taking a stake in Intel would mark the latest move by Trump, a Republican, to deepen the government’s involvement in the US chip industry, seen as a vital security interest to the country.

Earlier this week, Trump made a deal with Nvidia to pay the US government a cut of its sales in exchange for resuming exports of banned AI chips to China.

Chinese authorities have summoned domestic companies, including major internet firms Tencent and ByteDance, over their purchases of Nvidia’s H20 chips.

Authorities asked the companies on Tuesday to explain their reasons and expressed concerns over information risks, three people familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and other agencies also held meetings with Baidu and smaller Chinese tech firms in recent weeks, said one of the two people and a third source.

The Chinese officials asked companies why they needed to buy chips made by Nvidia, a US company, when they could purchase from domestic suppliers, the sources said.

Authorities in China expressed concern that the materials Nvidia has asked companies to submit for review with the US government could contain sensitive information, including client data, one of the sources said.

However, the people, who declined to be identified because the meetings were not public, said the companies have not been ordered to stop buying H20 chips.

Nvidia said on Tuesday that the H20 chip was “not a military product or for government infrastructure”.

“China has ample supply of domestic chips to meet its needs. It won’t and never has relied on American chips for government operations, just like the US government would not rely on chips from China,” the statement said.

Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and the CAC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Discouraged use

Earlier on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that Chinese authorities have urged domestic companies to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 chips, particularly for government-related purposes.

Several companies were issued official notices discouraging the use of the H20, a lower-end chip, mainly for any government or national security-related work by state enterprises or private companies, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

In a separate report, The Information reported that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent had been ordered by the CAC in the past two weeks to suspend Nvidia chip purchases altogether, citing data security concerns.

The CAC directive was communicated at a meeting the regulator held with more than a dozen Chinese tech firms, shortly after the administration of United States President Donald Trump reversed the export curbs on H20 chips, according to the Information report.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports, and Alibaba did not respond to a request for comment. Top contract chipmaker SMIC rose 5 percent on Tuesday on expectations of rising demand for locally-produced chips.

But even without an outright ban, the concerns expressed by Chinese authorities could threaten Nvidia’s recently restored access to the Chinese market as Chinese companies look to keep in step with regulators.

Nvidia designed the H20 specifically for China after export restrictions on its more advanced AI chips took effect in late 2023. The H20 has since been the most sophisticated AI chip Nvidia was allowed to sell in China.

Earlier this year, US authorities effectively banned its sale to China, but reversed the decision in July following an agreement between Nvidia and the Trump administration.

Threat to revenue stream

Last month, China’s cyberspace regulator summoned Nvidia representatives, asking the company to explain whether the H20 posed backdoor security risks that could affect Chinese user data and privacy.

State-controlled media have intensified criticism of Nvidia in recent days. Yuyuan Tantian, affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, published an article on WeChat over the weekend claiming that H20 chips pose security risks and lack technological advancement and environmental friendliness.

The scrutiny threatens a significant revenue stream for Nvidia, which generated $17bn from sales to China in its fiscal year ended January 26, or 13 percent of total revenue.

China has accelerated work on domestic AI chip alternatives, with companies such as Huawei developing processors that rival the H20’s performance, and Beijing urging the technology sector to become more self-sufficient.

However, US sanctions on advanced chipmaking equipment, including lithography machines essential for chip production, have constrained domestic manufacturers’ ability to boost production.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump suggested that he might allow Nvidia to sell a scaled-down version of its advanced Blackwell chip in China, despite deep-seated fears in Washington that Beijing could harness US AI capabilities to supercharge its military.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that it hoped the US would act to maintain the stability and smooth operation of the global chip supply chain.

The Trump administration last week confirmed an unprecedented deal with Nvidia and AMD, which agreed to give the US government 15 percent of revenue from sales of some advanced chips in China.

China’s renewed guidance on avoiding chips also affects AI accelerators from AMD, Bloomberg also reported. It was not clear, however, whether any notices from Chinese authorities specifically mentioned AMD’s MI308 chip.

AMD did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.