Apple and OpenAI Join Forces... Musk Says "Will Ban Apple Devices at Company"

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, strongly opposed the introduction of ChatGPT on Apple devices and announced that he would ban Apple devices within his company.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

On the 10th (local time), Musk responded to a post by Apple CEO Tim Cook on X (formerly Twitter, X) introducing Apple’s own artificial intelligence (AI) system, ‘Apple Intelligence,’ saying, "I don’t want that," and added, "If you don’t stop this creepy spyware, I will ban all Apple devices within the company."

In a separate X post, he also wrote, "If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, Apple devices will be banned in the company," calling it "an unacceptable security breach." He added, "Visitors will have to have their Apple devices checked at the entrance and placed in external lockers (Faraday cages)."

This came after Apple unveiled its proprietary AI system, Apple Intelligence, to be introduced across devices such as iPhones and iPads at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, and announced a partnership with OpenAI. Musk expressed strong distrust toward Apple’s explanation that applying ChatGPT would not lead to personal information leakage.

Musk stated, "It is clearly ridiculous for Apple, which is not smart enough to create its own AI, to guarantee that OpenAI can protect your security and personal information," and claimed, "Apple has no idea what actually happens when it hands over data to OpenAI. They will betray you and sell you down the river."

Along with this, he posted an image mocking how Apple Intelligence operates, depicting OpenAI sucking user data through Apple iPhones.

Musk’s strong opposition is closely related to the conflicts with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, which have surfaced several times recently. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman and others, left the OpenAI board in 2018 due to conflicts of interest and sold all his investment shares. Especially this year, he has filed a lawsuit claiming that OpenAI violated its founding mission to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of all humanity.

The AI startup xAI, founded by Musk to counter OpenAI, unveiled the AI chatbot ‘Grok’ based on the large language model Grok-1 last November, and at the end of last month, succeeded in raising $6 billion in investment. xAI’s corporate value has now soared to about $24 billion (approximately 33 trillion won).