Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) has released its list of the most downloaded apps in the United States for 2025. The list is dominated by artificial intelligence and social media. Billionaire Elon Musk probably won't be a fan of the list with his companies left off and rivals topping the year.
Apple's Most Downloaded Apps In 2025
OpenAI's AI chatbot ChatGPT dominated the list of the most downloaded apps on Apple devices in the United States in 2025.
The 2025 list looks significantly different, with ChatGPT jumping from fourth to first place and last year's winner, Temu, not ranking among the top 10 most downloaded apps in the country.
Here are the top 10 free apps, excluding games, by the number of downloads in the United States for 2025, as shared by TechCrunch:
- ChatGPT
- Threads
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Google Maps
- Gmail
- Google Gemini
ChatGPT being the most downloaded app could show the continued use cases for artificial intelligence and how the technology is disrupting the lives of Americans looking for help with everyday answers and information.
Along with OpenAI being a big winner based on the top free apps, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) have much to celebrate.
Meta's Threads, WhatsApp and Instagram land three of the top 10 places on the list.
Alphabet lands five of the top 10 places with Google, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail and Google Gemini, showing the dominance of the company's products across search, video/streaming, maps, email and AI.
Read Also: Musk, Huang, Zuckerberg Top Time’s 2025 Person Of The Year List: Who Are The Architects Of AI?
Musk Vs. Altman, Musk Vs. Zuckerberg
The rankings produced clear winners — and one notable loser: none of Elon Musk's companies landed in the top 10.
That includes social media platform X or the Grok AI chatbot from xAI.
What's worse is that many of the companies and products that were winners on the list are rivals of Musk.
OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, counts Musk as a co-founder and early investor. Musk is now a rival of the company and has fought against its CEO, Altman, on several occasions. xAI is also a rival to OpenAI, and Grok is a direct competitor to ChatGPT.
Musk is currently in the middle of a legal battle against Apple and OpenAI, alleging the two companies conspired to have a monopoly on the AI chatbot market. The lawsuit alleges that Apple made ChatGPT the lone AI used for Apple Intelligence.
The lawsuit also alleges that Apple highlighted ChatGPT as a must-have app, potentially limiting the growth of other AI chatbot apps in the Apple App Store.
Musk's X, which he acquired several years ago, remains one of the top social media platforms by user base. X not being on the list of top downloaded apps could be worrisome, with others like Threads, TikTok and Instagram all appearing.
Threads is seen as a potential X rival and started a feud between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Threads passed 400 million users in August and has shown strong growth in recent quarters. In June, Threads had a reported 115.1 million daily active users, compared to 132 million for X. While Threads trailed, it was gaining daily users, while X was losing users at the time.
Musk has also been critical of Instagram in the past, a photo-sharing platform owned by Meta. X is a rival with the ability to post photos.
"Instagram, man — it's a thirst trap, you know," Musk said of the platform previously.
While Musk isn’t a fan of ChatGPT, Threads or Instagram, they were among the most downloaded apps for Americans in 2025 and likely widely used.
Read Next:
Image created using artificial intelligence via Gemini.
© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
