Elon Musk, known both for his electric cars and his electric tweets, has once again taken to social media to deliver an ultimatum. This time, the target of his ire is Apple, whose newly announced partnership with OpenAI has prompted Musk to vow a ban on iPhones within Tesla, SpaceX and “other companies I run,” conveniently leaving the actual list delightfully vague.
Apple, always impeccably dressed and rarely rattled, took to the stage at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday and unveiled what it describes as a measured integration of OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, into its software ecosystem. The strategy includes a feature called “Apple Intelligence” which aims to offer users summarised notifications and assist with writing texts like a polite version of Clippy with fewer paperclip-related anxieties.
Though Apple insists that user data remains private and the OpenAI integration is strictly on an opt-in basis, Musk opted out of calm discourse and instead responded with the Twitter equivalent of fire and brimstone. He declared that if Apple embeds ChatGPT at the operating system level, all Apple devices would be banned from his businesses and, for good measure, added that visitors bringing such devices would be required to check them at the door, presumably next to the coat rack and corporate enthusiasm.
“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 and privacy!” Musk tweeted, adding, “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”
Tim Cook, Apple’s unflappable CEO, has yet to respond, possibly because he is either calmly sipping herbal tea or furiously consulting a team of lawyers and engineers about whether banning Tesla drivers from iMessage groups violates any known laws of physics.
Musk’s sudden stand might surprise some, but it fits neatly into his ongoing feud with OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015 but later sued in March over allegations that it had abandoned its original mission of benefiting humanity in favor of a corporate embrace with Microsoft. Nothing says commitment to open-source values like challenging your own brainchild in court while threatening to ban phones like a sitcom headmaster.
In the offices of Tesla and SpaceX, employees might now be seen quietly checking their pockets to ensure no forbidden fruit sneaks past security. Apple’s devices, those sleek slabs of metal and glass, may be relegated to Faraday cages before staff can set foot in the cafeteria. Truly, nothing brings out mid-century Cold War aesthetics like concerns over artificial intelligence and privacy policies written in 8-point Helvetica.
For now, Apple assures everyone that privacy remains sacred, ChatGPT is opt-in and benign and that nothing will eavesdrop on your conversations unless you ask it very nicely. Musk, in contrast, assures everyone that if integrating ChatGPT means snooping, then those devices will be about as welcome in his companies as a gasoline engine at a Tesla showroom.
Of course, banning the world’s most popular smartphone might make office logistics a tad more exciting, but if anyone can engineer their way out of this with a flamethrower and a Twitter thread, it is certainly Elon Musk.
Smartphones, AI and CEO feuds: just another Monday in Silicon Valley, where the future is always present and never particularly relaxing.