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Elon Musk threatens to ban the use of Apple devices in his companies due to OpenAI integration

Posted on by darion

Hot potato: It’s no secret that Elon Musk is not a fan of OpenAI – as evidenced by his lawsuit against the company. Apple’s collaboration with the creator of ChatGPT seems to have angered the billionaire even more, so much so that he has threatened to ban the sale of iPhones across all his companies.

Apple’s partnership with OpenAI was only talked about for about two minutes at the World Wide Developers Conference in Cupertino yesterday. Apple is integrating ChatGPT with Siri, although it will be an optional feature. If Siri thinks it will help answer the query, the assistant will first ask the user for permission to access the chatbot. Users will also need to confirm that they consent to uploading photos, PDF files or other documents to ChatGPT.

Apple is pitching the partnership as a safer, more privacy-focused way to use artificial intelligence, but Musk isn’t convinced. “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, Apple devices will be banned from my companies. This is an unacceptable security breach,” he wrote in a post on X.

In a subsequent post, Musk wrote that visitors to his company will have to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage.

“It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to create its own AI, yet is somehow able to ensure that OpenAI will protect your security and privacy!” Musk added.

Musk also responded to a post by YouTube tech star Marques Brownlee, who summarized what Apple calls Apple Intelligence. “Apple using the words ‘protect your privacy’ when handing over data to an external AI that it doesn’t understand and can’t create itself is *not* protecting privacy at all!” he wrote. Brownlee pointed out that Tim Cook told him that Apple never sends user data to OpenAI without asking first.

Apple writes that there are built-in privacy protections for users accessing ChatGPT, including hiding IP addresses and not having requests logged by OpenAI. The feature will come to iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia later this year, and users will be able to access it for free without having to create an account – ChatGPT subscribers will be able to link their accounts and access paid features.

Musk was one of the co-founders, supporters and early board members of OpenAI, who left the company in 2018 due to what he believed was a conflict of interest with Tesla. Earlier this year, he sued the company and CEO Sam Altman, claiming the pair had breached their original contractual agreements by putting profits ahead of developing artificial intelligence that would benefit humanity.