At 1:00 am Beijing time on June 11, the much-anticipated Apple WWDC 2024 kicked off as scheduled. During the 120-minute keynote, Apple showcased system-level updates for iOS, MacOS, iPadOS, visionOS, watchOS, and more. The final 45 minutes were dedicated to Tim Cook personally announcing and interpreting "Apple Intelligence."

Apple aims to transform Artificial Intelligence's AI into Apple Intelligence's AI.

However, after the entire keynote, it seems that Apple's AI capabilities displayed at WWDC 2024 did not convince the audience.

First, Apple's stock price, listed on the US stock market, fell by about 2% on that day;

Second, renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo stated that Apple did not make breakthrough progress beyond market expectations and doubted that the new iPhone models and their accompanying operating systems to be released in the fall would trigger a user replacement trend;

Lastly, Elon Musk, once the world's richest man, posted seven consecutive tweets, lambasting Apple's full integration of Open.AI's ChatGPT, accusing it of selling user data and threatening to ban Apple devices from his company if Apple integrates Open.AI at a system level, requiring visitors to hand over their Apple devices at the company entrance and store them in a Faraday cage (to block signals).

Whether Apple's Intelligence announced at WWDC 2024 meets expectations is a matter of opinion. After all, secondary market investors have voted with their money, and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has expressed his views. The most noteworthy is Musk's attitude.

Is Musk fighting for the rights of Apple users' data, or is he concerned that Open.AI's partnership with Apple, with its vast user base and data, could far surpass his own xAI? After all, Musk has had "issues" with both Apple and Open.AI.

01

Musk Posts 7 Consecutive Tweets

First, let's briefly discuss Apple's partnership with Open.AI, which involves integrating ChatGPT into Apple's system ecosystem, driven by the latest GPT-4o (Editor's note: likely to be updated with Open.AI or replaced by Apple's own large model). Regular users can use it without an account (Editor's note: referring to an Open.AI account) or log in to their own accounts to access more paid features.

In this partnership between Apple and Open.AI:

For Apple, it's a quick way to keep up with the current AI trend and use this time to fully develop its own large model, which is exactly what Apple is doing.

For Open.AI, Apple's vast user base and data are open to them, allowing them to instantly access the data from the world's strongest Apple ecosystem to train their large model. Additionally, they can gain access to the world's most lucrative user group, making this a mutually beneficial partnership.

After seeing Apple's official announcement of its partnership with Open.AI, Musk posted seven consecutive tweets on his own X platform, lambasting Apple's AI strategy.

First, Musk posted three consecutive tweets, arguing that Apple lacks the ability to create its own AI but believes it has the power to ensure that Open.AI can protect users' safety and privacy. He further stated that if Apple integrates Open.AI at the operating system level, he would ban the use of Apple devices in his company, even for visitors, who would have to hand over their Apple devices at the company entrance and store them in a Faraday cage.

Then, Musk posted a satirical image depicting the workflow of Apple Intelligence, using the flow path of coconut juice as an analogy. As shown in the image below, the world's richest man knows how to make jokes, but one wonders if he created this image himself or had his assistant do it.

Finally, Musk continued his satire using unique American humor and real-life examples, including the LGBT community and celebrity Scarlett.

02

Speaking for Apple Users or Himself?

Musk's seven consecutive tweets lambasting Apple's highly anticipated AI directly target one of the most crucial moats for Apple's growth and development—the emphasis and protection of user privacy. The targeting is extremely precise.

But, is Musk's purpose truly to speak for Apple users, or does he have ulterior motives under the guise of advocating for them?

First, Apple users' data is transmitted to Open.AI through AI functions running on Apple devices. It is indeed imperative for Apple and Open.AI to protect user data privacy, which is undoubted. Any violations by Apple and Open.AI could lead to collective lawsuits from users.

It's worth noting that collective lawsuits in the US often involve staggering compensation amounts, often reaching tens of billions of dollars.

Moreover, they could also face severe regulatory penalties, as fines in the US can be astonishing, with hundreds of billions of dollars not considered excessive and billions not considered insufficient.

Under such a regulatory environment, it is unlikely that Apple and Open.AI would take risks.

So, could the world's richest man be acting in his own self-interest? Then we need to consider Musk's past with Apple and Open.AI.

Looking at Musk's relationship with Open.AI, he was once a founder and board member of Open.AI. However, due to differences in vision and conflicts of interest, Open.AI expelled Musk from its board in February 2018.

After the explosive popularity of ChatGPT, Musk has made multiple statements about Open.AI. In addition to founding xAI in July 2023 to compete with Open.AI, he also filed a lawsuit against Open.AI and its CEO Sam Altman in March 2024 with the San Francisco Superior Court, accusing them of violating the company's original purpose of using technology for the benefit of humanity and instead serving the interests of investor Microsoft.

Initially, Open.AI operated in a foundation-like model. Even though Microsoft invested over $10 billion, there were clauses stipulating that after Open.AI generated a fixed income for Microsoft, there would be no further equity affiliation between the two parties.

However, under Sam Altman's governance, Open.AI has increasingly resembled a private company focused on profit-making.

After Apple officially announced its partnership with Open.AI, Open.AI immediately announced the appointment of Sarah Friar as CFO and Kevin Well as CPO. Sarah previously served as CEO of the community social networking service Nextdoor, while Kevin held executive positions in product development at Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). Sam Altman stated that these two additions would help expand operational scale and specify growth strategies.

Outside observers have interpreted the arrival of a CFO as a precursor to Open.AI's IPO.

As for Musk's relationship with Apple, it dates back to 2018 and 2019, when Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy due to production issues with the Model 3. Musk once sought a merger with Apple, but Tim Cook refused to meet with Musk. Later, after Musk acquired X, Apple almost stopped all advertising on X, leading to Musk meeting with Cook to resolve the issue.

03

Threats to Musk's AI Empire

The partnership between Apple and Open.AI combines Apple's vast data accumulation, user base, the planet's best closed ecosystem, and the strongest paying user group with Open.AI's technology. This combination has the potential for significant commercial success.

This poses a significant threat to Musk's AI empire.

Currently, Musk's AI empire consists of two major components: Twitter, now renamed X, which was privatized for $42 billion and provides data, scenarios, and users, and Tesla, with a market value of over $500 billion. Together, they are not on the same level as Apple.

Additionally, xAI, founded in July 2023, has just completed a $6 billion funding round and launched a chatbot named Grok, which is available to paying users on X. However, it lags significantly behind Open.AI in terms of scale and technology.

The speed of development in the AI field is astonishing, and it's difficult to predict what kind of impact the partnership between Apple and Open.AI will have. However, it can be expected that if it meets user needs, Apple users' paying power is extremely strong. It may even be stronger than Microsoft's ability to charge for Copilot services through Office.

This seems to have Musk on edge.

Of course, as a technologist, Musk may genuinely be speaking out for Apple users.