Judge keeps Apple’s X Corp settlement away from OpenAI

US District Judge Mark Pittman read the confidential settlement between Apple and Elon Musk’s X Corp and SpaceXAI himself, then refused to let OpenAI see it, Reuters reported on September 18. He found nothing in the materials that bears on the antitrust claim still live in the case, which targets competitors including OpenAI.

The request came out of the settlement itself. After X and SpaceXAI told the court they had reached an agreement with Apple and would move to dismiss their claims against it, OpenAI filed an emergency motion to compel production of the terms, arguing they could contain information relevant to its defense, 9to5Mac reported. Pittman’s answer was to order the plaintiffs to submit the agreement to the court privately. That set up an in camera review: the judge reads the documents in chambers, and they reach neither the public record nor the other side.

“The Court hesitates to compel the production of confidential settlement agreements entered by parties,” Pittman wrote, in the passages 9to5Mac quotes from the order. He acknowledged that courts have at times allowed production when such agreements hold information relevant to specific issues at summary judgment or trial. After reading this one, he concluded the materials “do not present information relevant to the issues to be decided at summary judgment or trial in this case.”

X Corp and X.AI LLC filed the complaint in the Northern District of Texas on August 25, 2025, with a jury demand, the court docket shows. The suit accuses Apple and OpenAI of colluding to shut competing AI apps out of the market, including by keeping them from gaining visibility on the App Store. Both companies denied the allegations.

Pittman has run the case from Fort Worth since the start. On October 16, 2025, he ordered that it stay there despite “at best minimal connections” to the area by any of the companies, CNBC reported. He pointed out that neither Apple nor OpenAI had asked to move the case before his Oct. 9 deadline: “The fact that neither Defendant filed a motion to transfer venue serves as a consideration for the Court.” Pittman, a Trump appointee, has been critical of forum-shopping, the practice of steering lawsuits to particular courts, and X and Tesla have both been among the plaintiffs filing in the Fort Worth division, the outlet noted.

None of this touches Apple’s own trade-secrets suit against OpenAI, which runs on a separate track with its own filings. In the antitrust case, Apple is settling out while OpenAI stays in, and the terms that got Apple out remain sealed. The order says nothing public about what Apple and the Musk companies agreed to.

The decision also records, per 9to5Mac, that OpenAI plans to file a motion for summary judgment, which asks the court to rule without a trial, and that Pittman has given the company more time to prepare it.