X Marks the Spot: Musk to Ban Apple Devices Over OpenAI Integration

Elon Musk said Monday (June 10) that Apple devices will be banned at his companies if they integrate OpenAI at the operating system (OS) level.

Musk, who runs Tesla, SpaceX, X and other companies, said this after Apple announced Monday that it has partnered with OpenAI and will integrate that company’s ChatGPT 4o artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot into iOS, macOS and iPadOS.

“If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies,” Musk said in a Monday post on X. “That is an unacceptable security violation.”

“And visitors will have to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage,” Musk added in another post.

Apple did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

When announcing the ChatGPT integration, Apple said that user data would not be tracked and that there would be other precautions, Bloomberg reported Monday.

“Privacy protections are built in when accessing ChatGPT within Siri,” Apple said, per the report. “Requests are not stored by OpenAI, and users’ IP addresses are obscured.”

In another Monday post on X, Musk said that Apple “has no clue” what will happen once data is handed over to OpenAI.

“It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy,” Musk said in the post.

Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, in February, accusing the company of deviating from its mission to develop AI that benefits humanity as a whole.

The lawsuit alleges that in 2015, the co-founders of OpenAI asked Musk to help create a nonprofit dedicated to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) to benefit humanity.

Musk, who helped start OpenAI in 2015, let the board in 2018.

“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity,’” the lawsuit said. “In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”

In July 2023, Musk announced the formation of a new AI company called xAI.

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PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024