Court Expands Discovery in xAI's Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple-OpenAI Partnership
Key Takeaways
- ▸Craig Federighi added as document custodian in xAI's antitrust suit; Apple must produce responsive documents by June 17, 2026
- ▸Court rejected adding Tim Cook to the case, finding insufficient evidence that he has unique documents beyond those already produced
- ▸Court narrowed scope of Apple-Google partnership documents but granted access to materials discussing potential exclusivity clauses
Summary
A federal court has granted Elon Musk's xAI expanded discovery rights in its ongoing antitrust lawsuit challenging the Apple-OpenAI partnership. The court designated Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, as a document custodian, requiring Apple to provide documents in his possession by June 17, 2026. The court reasoned that Federighi, as the key decision-maker for Apple's software development, likely has unique relevant evidence about the integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence. However, the court denied xAI's requests to add CEO Tim Cook or another unnamed Apple employee to the discovery process.
xAI's lawsuit alleges that Apple and OpenAI are working together to prevent competing large language models from succeeding in the App Store, claiming that Apple's integration of ChatGPT into Siri and Apple Intelligence constitutes exclusionary conduct. Apple has repeatedly denied these allegations and rejected characterizations of the partnership as exclusive. The court also granted xAI's motion to obtain documents related to Apple's partnership with Google but narrowed the scope to focus specifically on exclusivity clauses. In a separate development, OpenAI secured a court order requiring Elon Musk to hand over emails from Tesla and SpaceX accounts and other communications by June 3, 2026.
- OpenAI won a counter-motion requiring Elon Musk to produce personal communications from Tesla and SpaceX by June 3, 2026
