Aug 25 (Reuters) - Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's

artificial intelligence startup xAI sued Apple ( AAPL ) and

ChatGPT maker OpenAI in U.S. federal court in Texas on Monday,

accusing them of illegally conspiring to thwart competition for

artificial intelligence.

Musk earlier this month had threatened to sue Cupertino,

California-based Apple ( AAPL ), saying in a post on his social media

platform X that "Apple ( AAPL ) is behaving in a manner that makes it

impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the

App Store."

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; )