Elon Musk threatens to BAN Apple gadgets from his firms

Elon Musk announced Monday that he’ll ban Apple devices from his companies’ premises if the iPhone creator goes forward with its planned OpenAI integration.

Apple held its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference Monday, and the biggest takeaway was OpenAI’s ChatGPT will be paired with Apple’s assistant Siri.

In one example shown, Siri recommended that the iPhone user consult ChatGPT for further dinner recipe ideas, flagging all the way that these new answers were coming from OpenAI’s chatbot and advising users to ‘check important info for mistakes’. 

Musk responded to the plan on X, saying employees and visitors to his companies would ‘have to check their Apple devices at the door’ where they will be stored in a ‘Faraday cage’ – a cage that blocks electromagnetic fields. 

He continued: ‘If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.’ 

Elon Musk came out swinging at Apple Monday for partnering with OpenAI, which he cofounded along with Sam Altman in 2015 (Musk pictured at the Viva Technology conference on June 16, 2023) 

 Altman and Musk’s relationship soured when OpenAI executives refused a buyout offer from Tesla in 2018, causing Musk to leave the company (Altman pictured at the APEC CEO Summit on November 16, 2023) 

Musk said employees and visitors to his companies would ‘have to check their Apple devices at the door’ where they will be stored in a ‘Faraday cage’ – a cage that blocks electromagnetic fields

Siri will be fitted with GPT-4o, the latest iteration of the famous chatbot that some users say sounds like Scarlett Johansson’s character in the movie ‘Her.’

Prior to Musk’s post criticizing the move, Apple promised its users that unlike ordinary usage of ChatGPT direct from OpenAI’s platform, users’ private information and their queries will not be logged or stored.

The wider service being offered is called Apple Intelligence, which will have its own image generating AI dubbed ‘Image Playground.’ 

It also transforms Apple’s calculator app into living piece of scratch paper to do complex math problems on.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that one of the five criteria Apple Intelligence needs to meet is being ‘private’. 

According to the presentation, Apple Intelligence ‘will be keeping users’ personal information on their devices rather than uploading it to an Apple-owned cloud’ thanks to the company’s powerful new M chips.

But Musk made it clear in a subsequent post that he doesn’t buy that, saying that Apple is ‘selling you down the river’. 

Musk wrote: ‘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 Intelligence’ transforms Apple’s calculator app into living piece of scratch paper to do complex math problems on

‘Apple Intelligence’ is the tech giant’s new name for its AI-powered personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

‘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,’ he wrote.

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

Replies to Musk’s post were filled with people begging him to release his own phone using either X branding or Tesla branding.

‘Honestly at this point we need Tesla or X to come out with a phone powered by Starlink,’ right-wing film director Robby Starbuck wrote. 

‘I would switch in a heartbeat,’ he said, adding that he doesn’t trust OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. 

‘I don’t want his tech inside my phone, inside my office or near my family,’ Starbuck said. 

Elon Musk cofounded OpenAI with Sam Altman back in 2015, and the company was supposed to be a non-profit to serve as a check on the potential threats artificial intelligence could pose to humanity.

Their relationship soured when OpenAI executives refused a buyout offer from Tesla in 2018, causing Musk to leave the company. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers remarks at the start of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, 2024 in Cupertino, California

Sam Altman (centre) once looked up to Elon Musk (left) but the pair have since publicly fallen out over disagreements on the direction OpenAI should be taken in

In March, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, its current CEO, over an alleged betrayal of the company’s founding aims of benefiting humanity rather than pursuing profit. 

Sam Altman responded to Musk’s lawsuit on an episode of Lex Fridman’s podcast, saying that he didn’t believe it was about OpenAI being open source or not. 

OpenAI’s founders published a series of emails from Musk where he supported the company’s pivot to a mix between non-profit and for-profit, Business Insider reported. 

Musk also joked on X that he would drop the lawsuit if the company changed its name to ClosedAI.

‘I think that speaks to the seriousness with which Elon means the lawsuit – and it’s an astonishing thing to say,’ Altman said.