Elon Musk has once again found himself in the middle of the Apple-AI conversation. This time after responding to an X post that suggested Apple should turn to XAI’s Grok to fix its Siri. What started as an X user’s casual comment quickly turned into fresh speculation about whether Apple and Musk could ever work together, especially at a time when both sides are locked in a legal battle.

It started when X user @XFreeze, whose account Musk follows, urged Apple to replace Siri’s intelligence with Grok 4.1. “Now is the time for Apple to work together with xAI and fix Siri,” the post reads. “Replace that old, painfully dumb assistant with Grok 4.1. Siri deserves to be superintelligent.”

Musk did not ignore this. Instead, he responded with a brief “I’m disappointed”, which suggests he’s open to the idea of ​​an xAI-Apple collaboration, even though his companies are currently accusing Apple of reducing competition in the AI ​​market.

Grok 4.1, which launches today, is the most advanced model of xAI to date. It leads the LMArena benchmark with a score of 1483 Elo in thinking mode, and its strengths lie in empathy-based interactions and creativity-focused tasks. The AI ​​is also designed to reduce hallucinations and is available for free on both X and grok.com.

The legal battle is still going on

Even though Musk is considering the possibility of working with Apple, his lawsuit against the company remains very much alive. Last week, a US judge allowed the antitrust case filed by Musk’s companies (social platform X and AI startup XAI) to proceed. The lawsuit alleges that Apple colluded with OpenAI to dominate the smartphone and AI chatbot markets.

According to Reuters, US District Judge Mark Pittman said the claims can proceed now, adding that it does not indicate whether the allegations are true. After the facts and evidence are presented, it will be evaluated.

Musk’s complaint argues that Apple broke antitrust rules by making ChatGPT the specialized AI model that powers Apple Intelligence on the iPhone and other Apple hardware. The filing also accuses Apple of increasing ChatGPT’s visibility through its “must-have apps” list, while allegedly reducing the visibility of competing assistants in the App Store.

Apple quietly opens the gates to Siri in Japan

At the same time, Apple is making a rare change in itself. A report on the latest iOS 26.2 beta suggests that users in Japan will soon be able to assign a third-party assistant to the iPhone’s side button, replacing Siri at the system level.

According to 9To5Mac, new developer beta code confirms that users will be able to choose which Assistant will launch when they long press the Side or Action button. Apple later published a detailed developer document explaining how apps can use the App Intents framework to bind their Assistant to this hardware trigger.

This change is notable because Apple has historically kept system-level invitations locked to Siri. The company appears to be adjusting to Japan’s Mobile Software Competition Act, which emphasizes more user choice and interoperability. If implemented widely, this change could reshape the way voice assistants compete on the iPhone.

Meanwhile, big changes are coming to Siri’s mind

Amid all this noise, Bloomberg recently reported that Apple’s next-generation Siri, a more capable version coming with a future Apple Intelligence update, will run partly on Google’s Gemini model. The report claims Apple will pay Google about $1 billion annually for a 1.2-trillion-parameter model tailored to Apple’s needs.

By comparison, Apple’s current cloud-based model powering Apple Intelligence uses about 150 billion parameters. The new Gemini model “dwarfs” Apple’s in size, and Apple plans to use it for complex tasks like summarizing longer content and handling multi-step tasks. Apple’s own models will continue to power many Siri features, and the Gemini-based system will run entirely on Apple’s private cloud compute servers, keeping Google away from user data.