Elon Musk threatens iPhone ban over OpenAI integration

He says visitors will have to check their iPhones at the door where they will be stored in a Faraday cage.

On X, Elon Musk has threatened to ban the iPhone from his company’s premises “if Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level.” OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT, the popular generative AI chatbot.

This tirade occurred following Apple’s announcement of OpenAI integrations at the iPhone maker’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, 2024.

Musk termed the partnership an “unacceptable security violation” and said, “Visitors will have to check their devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage.”

And that’s not it. He wrote, “Don’t want it” in response to a message from Apple chief Tim Cook on X that announced the technology giant’s intelligence offerings for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

“Either stop this creepy spyware or all Apple devices will be banned from the premises of my companies,” exclaimed Musk in this message to Cook.

Musk’s tirade against this partnership went a step further. In a message on X, he remarked:

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!

Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.

Musk has no love for OpenAI. He, in March 2024, sued the ChatGPT-maker and its founder Sam Altman saying the company had abandoned its original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the good of humanity and was doing it for profit. Also, the X and Tesla owner, in 2023, founded XAI, a direct rival to ChatGPT.