Elon Musk is threatening to ban iPhones from all of his companies because of the newly announced OpenAI integrations that Apple announced at WWDC 2024 on Monday. In a series of posts in Xthe Tesla, SpaceX and xAI exec wrote that “if Apple integrates OpenAI at the operating system level,” Apple devices will be banned from its businesses and visitors will have to check their Apple devices at the door where they will be “stored in a Cage Faraday.”
His posts seem to misunderstand Apple’s announced relationship with OpenAI, or at least try to leave room for doubt about user privacy. While Apple and OpenAI have said that users are asked before “any questions are sent to ChatGPT,” along with any documents or photos, Musk’s responses show that he believes OpenAI is deeply integrated into Apple’s operating system itself, and as such therefore it is able to attract any personal and private data.
In iOS 18, Apple said people will be able to ask Siri questions, and if the assistant thinks ChatGPT can help, it will ask permission to share the question and present the answer directly. This allows users to receive a response from ChatGPT without having to open the ChatGPT iOS app. Photos, PDFs or other documents you want to send to ChatGPT are treated the same.
Musk, however, would prefer OpenAI’s capabilities to remain confined to a dedicated app — not a Siri integration.
Responding to VCs and CTOs Sam Pooletherefore to Sutter Hill Ventures who wrote that the user approves a specific request based on the request — OpenAI doesn’t have access to the device — Musk wrote: “Then leave it as an app. This is bullshit.”
Pullara had said that the way ChatGPT was integrated was essentially the same way the ChatGPT app works today. The AI models on the device are either Apple’s own or those using Apple’s Private Cloud.
In the meantime, answering in a post on X by YouTuber Marques Brownlee that further explained Apple Intelligence, Musk responded: “Apple uses the words ‘protect your privacy’ while handing your data over to third-party AIs that they don’t understand and can’t themselves Creation *doesn’t* protect privacy at all!”
He actually he answered in a post by Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he threatened to ban Apple devices from his companies’ facilities if he didn’t “stop this creepy spyware.”
“It’s completely absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to build its own AI, but is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security and privacy!” Musk exclaimed in one of several posts about the new integrations. “Apple has no idea what’s really going on when it hands over your data to OpenAI. They are selling you down the river,” he said. While it’s true that Apple may not know the inner workings of OpenAI, it’s not technically Apple delivering the data — the user makes that choice, from the sounds of things.
Apple also announced another integration that would allow users to access ChatGPT system-wide within Writing Tools through a “compose” feature. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to write a bedtime story for your child in a document, Apple suggested. You could also ask ChatGPT to generate images in various styles that complement your writing. Through these features, users will essentially have free access to ChatGPT without having to create an account. This is good news for OpenAI, which will soon have a massive influx of requests from Apple users.
Apple users may not understand the nuances of the privacy issues here, of course — which is what Musk is counting on by making these complaints. If users could designate their own preferred AI bot for Siri requests or text assistance, like Anthropic’s Claude or — say, xAI’s Grok — it’s doubtful that Musk would be vocal about the dangers of such integration. (In fact, Apple just hinted that Google Gemini could be integrated in the future, in a session after the keynote.)
In its announcement, Apple says that user requests and information are not logged, but ChatGPT subscribers can link their account and then access their paid features directly from within Apple’s AI experiences.
“Of course, you are in control of when ChatGPT is used and you will be prompted before your information is shared. ChatGPT integration will come to iOS 18 iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia later this year,” said Craig Federighi, vice president of Apple Engineering Software. The features will only be available on iPhone Pro 15 models and devices using M1 or newer chips.
OpenAI repeated something similar in his blog post, noting that “requests are not stored by OpenAI and user IP addresses are masked. Users can also choose to link their account to ChatGPT, which means their data preferences will apply according to ChatGPT’s policies.” The latter refers to the optional (as in opt-in) ability to link the feature to paid subscription.
