Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, launched a scathing critique on Monday against the new partnership between Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOGL), claiming it grants the latter an “unreasonable concentration of power.”
Google and Apple announced a new multi-year cooperation agreement on Monday, though specific financial terms were not disclosed.
Under the agreement, Apple will utilize Google’s Gemini model to power a new version of Siri, set to launch later this year. This collaboration deepens the alliance between the two tech giants in the AI era and further solidifies Google’s position in its competition against OpenAI.
In a joint statement, the two companies said: “After a thorough evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s AI technology provides the most capable underlying support for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the new innovative experiences this will unlock for Apple users.”
Musk responded on his social media platform X, stating: “Given that Google also controls Android and Chrome, this looks like an unreasonable concentration of power.”
Musk founded his own AI company, xAI, to compete with major industry players like OpenAI.
In contrast to Musk’s criticism, Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, believes the deal is a “positive win” for both Apple and Google. He noted that for Google, the partnership serves as a major validation of its status as a top-tier foundation model provider. For Apple, it represents a significant step in accelerating its AI strategy toward 2026 and beyond.
Apple had previously considered partnering with OpenAI or Anthropic to have ChatGPT or Claude power the new Siri but ultimately selected Google’s Gemini. Last November, Google launched its Gemini 3 model, which received widespread acclaim for its performance.
The latest agreement builds upon years of existing collaboration, as Google has long been the default search engine on Apple devices. This partnership not only drives massive traffic to Google but also generates tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue for Apple.
Apple currently has approximately 2.4 billion active iOS devices and 1.5 billion iPhones in use, representing one of the largest installed bases among consumer electronics companies.