Elon Musk exposes himself through Apple/OpenAI temper tantrum

Elon Musk has thrown a temper tantrum over Apple’s integration of OpenAI, and the episode exposes the problem with his social media addiction.

Earlier this week, Apple announced its latest suite of software, including its new Apple Intelligence product, which integrates large language models (LLMs) into its products.

This includes using OpenAI’s ChatGPT as an LLM option when asking questions to the new Siri.

Musk, who is not a fan of OpenAI, freaked out.

The Tesla CEO sent a series of tweets attacking Apple over the move, going as far as calling ChatGPT “spyware” and saying that he would ban “Apple products at his companies.”

Some of Musk’s tweets on the matter were community-noted for being misleading, like claiming that Apple can’t make their own AI and that ChatGPT is being integrated at the operating system level:

It has been hard to “community note” Musk’s tweets because for a community note to be added, users need to vote on its usefulness, and Musk’s fans often vote them down on his tweets even if they are misleading.

However, his series of tweets about Apple’s ChatGPT integration was too inaccurate to ignore.

As our colleagues at 9to5mac pointed out, the integration of ChatGPT in iOS18 requires permission from the user. It is effectively the equivalent of having the ChatGPT app on your phone with simply the ability to prompt through Siri if you want to.

Apple’s stock price hit record highs following the announcement.

Electrek’s Take

I think this is a symptom of Elon’s social media addiction:

I bet that he didn’t even watch the Apple presentation. He most likely read a few things about it on X, saw the OpenAI partnership, and had a knee-jerk reaction.

It also shows how his own personal issues can affect his companies, like Tesla.

Elon has a vendetta against OpenAI. He co-founded the effort, but he was pushed out after he tried to get control of the company.

He recently tried to sue OpenAI and coincidentally, he dropped his lawsuit yesterday, which he most likely knew about when he went on his tirade about Apple and OpenAI. Coincidence? I think not.

So, Elon misinterpreted some information on X and had a knee-jerk reaction, threatening to make life more difficult for people at his companies.

What I find interesting is that he is increasingly exposing himself with this kind of behaviour. Everyone who listened to the Apple presentation or looked into the situation a little more in-depth, understand that Elon overreacted and shared misinformation. Now, those people are asking themselves whether the same thing happened last time they listened to Elon on a topic they themselves are not too familiar with.

This is something that happens a lot in this social media era. People read a few tweets and they think they are fully informed on a topic. It is especially dangerous with someone as influential as Elon.