Category: 3. Business

Apple has rejected accusations from Elon Musk that its App Store stifles competiton, insisting it is “designed to be free and fair of bias.”

X owner Musk has threatened Apple with legal action after claiming it had made it “impossible” for apps to compete with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in the store

He also called OpenAI boss Sam Altman a “liar” – after Altman claimed Musk used his platform to “benefit himself and his own companies”.

The row is the latest flashpoint in what is an ongoing feud between the billionaires who co-founded OpenAI – but now fiercely compete after Musk left the firm.

Apple announced a partnership with ChatGPT in June 2024 – but there is no suggestion Apple favours one app over the other, and several rival AI apps such as DeepSeek and Perplexity have topped the App Store charts since then.

In a statement sent to the BBC, Apple said: “We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria.”

In a later post Musk took aim at Apple again, asking the firm why it would not promote X – or its AI app Grok – in the “Must Have” section of the App Store.

“X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps,” he said in a post now pinned to his X profile.

ChatGPT is currently the most downloaded free app in the UK, with Grok a close third. X does not make the top 40.

This seemed to draw the attention of Altman, who linked to a report by tech newsletter Platformer which claimed Musk had made his own personal X posts more prominent in people’s feeds.

The feud between Musk and Altman has, over time, encompassed a slew of lawsuits, email dumps and social media digs.

Their rivalry can be traced back a decade, with Musk’s now public belief that OpenAI, under Altman’s leadership, abandoned the principles he and others used to found it in 2015.

The firm was created with the intention of building artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI that can perform any task that a human being is capable of – but by making its technology open-source and promising to “benefit humanity”.

OpenAI was also set up as a not-for-profit company, meaning it would not aim to make money, but in 2019 it established a for-profit arm which Musk felt was antithetical to its original mission.

Musk argued in his March 2024 lawsuit that the firm had instead been focusing on “maximising profits” for its major investor Microsoft.

And while he unexpectedly dropped his lawsuit last year, OpenAI then filed a counter-suit against him in April.

It claimed the X owner had engaged “non-stop” in “bad-faith tactics” to try and slow down the company’s AI development.

OpenAI has also claimed Musk is not motivated by preserving the company’s founding mission – but rather by his “own agenda”.

And the feud has not stopped at just words and legal action. In February, Musk made a shock move to try and buy the company for $100bn (£74bn) – a bid rejected by OpenAI’s board.

The BBC has approached Apple for comment.

Europe’s first circular wind farm

In a landmark step toward solving the blade waste challenge, multinational power company Endesa and Holcim have successfully demonstrated a full-scale circular solution at the Aldeavieja wind farm in Ávila, Spain.

As part of the facility’s repowering project, 22 aging turbines were dismantled and replaced by four modern ones, increasing capacity from 14.5 MW to 24 MW. Instead of discarding the old blades, the team reused them, incorporating recycled fibers from the blades into ECOPact concrete for the site’s new turbine foundations using Holcim’s circular technology, ECOCycle®.

This marks the first time in Europe that decommissioned wind blades have been used in new wind farm infrastructure.

“Aldeavieja is now the first wind farm in Europe to complete its own lifecycle by using structural waste for repowering,” says Pilar Lara, Project Manager in charge of Engineering and Construction Projects at Endesa. 

Lloyd’s Register (LR) Advisory has expanded its ports team and invested in expertise and leadership to launch LR Ports Advisory – a new centre to support ports as they address the many interconnected challenges faced today.

Geopolitics, sustainability, security, and technology are interlinked, but present opportunities and risks at varying levels from region to port, with many organisations assessing how best to navigate these evolving drivers. 

LR Ports Advisory’s deep domain of regulatory, energy, and maritime knowledge supports its ability to offer advisory solutions across port risk management, performance, investments, energy transition, and asset management. 

The launch comes as many ports globally grapple with the effects of increased maritime traffic. While technological and digital solutions can enhance performance and expand capacity, they also introduce exposure to cyber risks. Meanwhile, physical challenges such as sea level rise and the integration of future fuels into energy supply chains all require strategies and investments to ensure the long-term viability of port assets. As port operators expand into new geographies, they need a partner to support and enable efficient operations.  

Kamran Ul Haq, Senior Vice President – Ports Advisory, joined LR to lead the new LR Ports Advisory team. He said: “LR Ports Advisory understands the increasingly complex landscape that today’s ports operate in. While the challenges may be shared, each port is different, and a tailored approach is needed for a sustainable future. Our deep seam of industry knowledge, drawn from across LR, enables us to provide ports with the insights they need to achieve their ambitions, whether they be attracting and retaining customers or future-proofing assets.” 

James Frew, Director of LR Advisory, commented: “Our new team of port experts, supported by the wider LR Advisory and LR business, are ideally placed to deliver expert advice to the ports industry. Our valued relationships with regulators, intergovernmental agencies and industry players also enable us to deliver actionable plans to our clients, to help ports implement optimised and sustainable operations in line with their commercial realities.” 

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Wednesday that there was room for lowering the monetary policy rate by the end of this year.

After slashing the interest rate by 1,000bps from 22 per cent since June 2024 in seven intervals, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has maintained it at 11pc since May. However, the business community has expressed its intense disappointment over the decision.

Addressing an event in Islamabad today, Aurangzeb said: “The monetary policy rate and the market-based exchange rate are very much the purview of the State Bank of Pakistan and the Monetary Policy Committee.

“Having said that, in my personal opinion, I do think there is room to do more in terms of policy rate, and I am very hopeful that during the course of this calendar year, we will see movement on the policy rate going south,” the minister added.

He noted that “whether it was average inflation or core inflation”, there was space for the SBP to lower the rate.

“National security and economic stability are correlated,” Aurangzeb further said.

“In the past 1.5 years, we have made strong progress on the economic front,” he noted, listing: “Increase in the country’s economy and per capita income, stability in the economic sector, record decrease in financial deficit and inflation, improvement in current account surplus and external account, record increase in foreign exchange reserves and remittances.”

He summed up the country’s current economic status: “On the financing costs, we have moved in the right direction. On the energy side, we are beginning to move in the right direction.

“On the taxation side, the fiscal space we had and whatever we could do in this budget, I am very clear in terms of the direction of travel. We need to bring taxation to a regional competitive level,” he added, stressing that expanding the tax nets and closing the loopholes were necessary for that.

Pointing out that international financial institutions had hailed Pakistan’s economic reforms, and that Fitch and S&P Global Ratings had upgraded the country’s credit ratings this year, Aurangzeb said he was hopeful of “the third agency” — an apparent reference to Moody’s — doing the same soon.

Aurangzeb already urged Moody’s in July to improve Pakistan’s current Caa2 credit rating during a virtual engagement in July.

Speaking on the recent trade deal secured with the United States, wherein the tariffs were reduced from 29pc to 19pc, the finance czar hailed the “regionally competitive tariff”.

He recalled Commerce Minister Jam Kamal’s meeting yesterday with leading exporters from various segments and termed it a “fantastic opportunity”.

“What I used to say as part of the private sector, it is necessary to implement that when we are public servants now,” Aurangzeb said.

Noting that he previously gave the example of how “Mumbai does not go to Delhi but Delhi goes to Mumbai” at the time of India’s budget, the minister stressed that the government needs to visit the business community itself for consultations.

Economic sectors

During the media briefing, Aurangzeb also highlighted a “double-digit increase” in exports in the textile, IT and pharmaceutical sectors.

Observing an improved “local business environment”, he added: “SME (small and medium enterprises) loans have increased by 41pc. Should it be even higher? The answer is yes. But 41pc is not a small or insignificant number.

“Loans in the agricultural sector have crossed the Rs2.5 trillion figure. Private sector loans have increased by 38pc,” he added.

The finance czar explained that once fiscal discipline is achieved, the government’s borrowing requirement will decrease, and bank and other economic institutions will reach out to the private sector. The government has significantly increased its borrowing from commercial banks, reaching Rs2.7tr by early May.

He added that the government had reduced its debt servicing by Rs1tr in the past year. “God-willing, our debt servicing will go down by more than 1tr this year as well.”

Recalling his recent meetings with the SBP governor, Aurangzeb emphasised: “We are getting our house in order, which is the federal government. And therefore, it is important that you also take whatever efforts you are making towards the private sector.”

The finance minister also pointed out the record-setting spree at the Pakistan Stock Exchange, which crossed 147,000 points yesterday. He noted a 60pc growth in it, without specifying the timeline.

Aurangzeb highlighted there had been a “record increase” of 65,000 new investors who have come into the PSX over the last year. Company registrations’ annual levels had also gone above 250,000, the minister said, terming both developments as a “big structural change”.

‘Rightsizing of 43 ministries underway’

Speaking about the structural reforms, the minister pointed out the ongoing tariff reforms, which he said were taking place for the first time in Pakistan’s history.

He highlighted that the reforms aim to explore how to reduce the costs of raw materials and intermediate products so that Pakistan could become an export-led economy.

On the government’s rightsizing plan, the finance czar noted that the process for 43 ministries and over 400 departments was underway. He also reaffirmed that the privatisation of state-owned institutions will speed up this year.

The government had moved well past its original June 30 deadline for completing the rightsizing and has written to various ministries to seek their details.

Aurangzeb also pledged further reduction in energy costs due to the savings from the revised agreements with 27 independent power producers earlier this year.

EG Group, a leading international operator of convenience retail, food service and fuel stations, has agreed the sale of its Italian business to a consortium of leading Italian operators for an enterprise value of EUR425 million.