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Vincent Feuray | Afp | Getty Images

Elon Musk on Monday threatened Apple with legal action over alleged antitrust violations related to rankings of the Grok AI chatbot app, which is owned by his artificial intelligence startup xAI. 

“Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. xAI will take immediate legal action,” Musk wrote in a post on social media platform X.

Apple did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

“Why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your “Must Have” section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps? Are you playing politics?” Musk said in another post.

Apple last year tied up with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop and desktop products. Musk at that time had said that “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.”

CNBC confirmed that ChatGPT was ranked No. 1 in the top free apps section of the American iOS store, and was the only AI chatbot in Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” section.

Prior to his legal threats against Apple, Musk had celebrated Grok surpassing Google as the fifth top free app on the App Store.

OpenAI on Thursday announced GPT-5, its latest and most advanced large-scale AI model, following xAI Grok 4 chatbot released last month.

This is not the first time Apple has been challenged on antitrust grounds. The Department of Justice last year sued Apple over iPhone ecosystem monopoly.

In June, a panel of judges denied Apple’s emergency application to halt the changes to its App Store. The iPhone maker had requested the appeals court to pause an order that said the company could no longer charge a commission on payment links inside its apps nor tell developers how the links should look.

— CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this story.

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Motive, an Alphabet-backed fleet management software company, files for IPO

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Motive, an Alphabet-backed fleet management software company, files for IPO

Direxion signage at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. The holiday-shortened week started with gains in stocks amid a broad advance that saw a continuation of the bullish momentum on Wall Street.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Motive, a company with software for managing corporate trucks and drivers, on Tuesday filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MTVE.”

The paperwork puts Motive among a fast-growing group of tech companies looking to go public in 2026. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX have all reportedly considered making their shares widely available for trading next year.

Motive is smaller, reporting a $62.7 million net loss on $115.8 million in revenue in the third quarter. The loss widened from $41.3 million in the same quarter of 2024, while revenue grew about 23% year over year. The company had almost 100,000 clients at the end of September.

Ryan Johns, Obaid Khan and Shoaib Makani started Motive in 2013, originally under the name Keep Truckin. Makani, the CEO, is Khan’s brother-in-law.

Investors include Alphabet’s GV, Base10 Partners, Greenoaks, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Scale Venture Partners.

Motive’s AI Dashcam device for detecting unsafe driving “has prevented 170,000 collisions and saved 1,500 lives on our roads,” Makani wrote in a letter to investors. Most revenue comes from subscriptions, although Motive does sell replacement hardware and professional services.

The San Francisco company changed its name to Motive in 2022, and as of Sept. 30, it employed 4,508 people. Motive employs 400 full-time data annotators who apply labels that are meant to enhance artificial intelligence models.

Motive has ongoing patent-infringement litigation with competitor Samsara, which went public in 2021 and today has a $22 billion market capitalization.

WATCH: AI IPO boom next year? The changing 2026 IPO landscape

AI IPO boom next year? The changing 2026 IPO landscape

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Why an analyst sees Meta shares getting back to record highs – plus, another tariff reprieve

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Why an analyst sees Meta shares getting back to record highs – plus, another tariff reprieve

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U.S. pushes additional tariffs on Chinese chips to June 2027

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U.S. pushes additional tariffs on Chinese chips to June 2027

A silicon wafer with chips etched into is seen as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris tours a site where Applied Materials plans to build a research facility, in Sunnyvale, California, U.S., May 22, 2023.

Pool | Reuters

The U.S. will increase tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports in June 2027, at a rate to be determined at least a month in advance, the Trump administration said in a Federal Register filing on Tuesday.

But in the meantime, the initial tariff rate on semiconductor imports from China will be zero for 18 months, according to the filing from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

As part of an investigation that kicked off a year ago, the agency found that China is engaging in unfair trade practices in the industry.

“For decades, China has targeted the semiconductor industry for dominance and has employed increasingly aggressive and sweeping non-market policies and practices in pursuing dominance of the sector,” the office said in the filing.

The decision to delay new tariffs for at least 18 months signals that the Trump administration is seeking to cool any trade hostilities between the U.S. and China.

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Additional tariffs could also become a bargaining chip if future talks break down.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a truce in the so-called trade war in October, as part of a deal that included the U.S. slashing some tariffs and China allowing exports of rare earth metals.

The USTR’s Tuesday filing states that tariffs will increase on June 23, 2027.

The notice is the next step in a process focusing on older chips that started during the Biden administration under Section 301 of the Trade Act.

The new 2027 date gives clarity to American firms that have said they are closely watching how U.S. tariffs could affect their businesses or supply chains.

The tariffs are separate from other duties threatened by the Trump administration on Chinese chip imports under Section 232 of the law.

EUV machines are key source of leverage for U.S. over China in AI race, says CSIS’s Gregory Allen

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