Judge Keeps Musk's Secret Apple Deal Hidden From OpenAI

OpenAI wanted a look at the deal Elon Musk's companies cut with Apple. On Thursday, the federal judge overseeing the case said no — and he said it after reading the agreement himself.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman of Fort Worth, Texas, conducted a private, in-camera review of the confidential agreement between Apple and X Corp and refused to compel its production to OpenAI, ruling that it does "not present information relevant to the issues" remaining in Musk's antitrust lawsuit. The decision is a clean win for Musk's X Corp and SpaceXAI, and a tangible setback for OpenAI's defense as it prepares to ask the court to throw the case out before trial.

Elon Musk at a conference in March 2024. His companies, X Corp and SpaceXAI, sued Apple and OpenAI in August 2025; their claims against Apple are now resolved while the antitrust case against OpenAI continues. Photo: Wcamp9, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons.

What the judge actually found

The ruling followed Pittman's Tuesday order requiring X and SpaceXAI to file with the court by Thursday "any agreement or combination of agreements with Apple that relate to the resolution of Plaintiffs' claims against Apple in this litigation," so the judge could examine the deal privately before deciding whether OpenAI would ever see it.

OpenAI had asked for the terms through an emergency motion filed by its lawyers at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, arguing the agreement could contain information relevant to its defense now that the case continues against OpenAI alone. Pittman took the middle path: he would look at it himself first, in camera, and decide.

On Thursday, he issued his answer. From the decision:

"The Court hesitates to compel the production of confidential settlement agreements entered by parties. […] Courts have, at times, permitted the production of confidential settlement agreements to the extent they contain information relevant to specific issues at summary judgment or trial. Having conducted an in camera review of the requested materials, however, the Court finds that they do not present information relevant to the issues to be decided at summary judgment or trial in this case."

In plain terms: judges will sometimes force the disclosure of a confidential settlement when it genuinely matters to deciding a case. After reading this one, Pittman concluded it didn't.

The decision also reveals OpenAI's next move. Pittman notes that the company plans to file a motion for summary judgment — asking the court to rule on the claims without a trial — and that the court has granted OpenAI additional time to prepare it.

How a "resolved" lawsuit turned into a discovery fight

The standoff began on September 14, when X Corp and SpaceXAI filed a motion stating that they had "resolved their claims in this Action against Defendant Apple Inc." and asking, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2), to dismiss those claims with prejudice. Apple did not oppose. The filing gave no terms, no payment details, and no explanation — it never even used the word "settlement." "Resolved" was the only word on the record.

But a quiet exit is exactly what made OpenAI suspicious. With Apple out and the confidential terms undisclosed, OpenAI argued it needed to see what X had accepted — both to help rebut Musk's remaining claims and because, in OpenAI's telling, the deal could undermine any effort by X to seek a monetary payment from OpenAI. Put bluntly, OpenAI wanted to know whether X had already been made whole by Apple before continuing to chase OpenAI for damages.

Pittman's response was Pittman's Tuesday order that forced X and SpaceXAI to hand over the Apple deal — an order that X and SpaceXAI submit the agreement for his private, in-camera review and respond to OpenAI's motion by Thursday. Thursday's ruling was the verdict on that exercise: not relevant, not produced.

Why this hurts OpenAI's defense

It is worth being precise about what Pittman did and did not decide. He did not rule that Musk's antitrust claims have merit, or that OpenAI has done anything wrong. He ruled only that the Apple agreement has no bearing on the issues to be decided at summary judgment or trial. The settlement terms stay sealed, and the public — and OpenAI — learns nothing about what Apple gave up, or didn't, to walk away.

Still, the practical effect favors Musk. OpenAI had a clear theory: whatever X accepted from Apple might cut against X's damages claims against OpenAI, and the one document that could prove it was the settlement itself. That evidentiary door is now shut, and OpenAI's Wachtell lawyers will have to build their summary judgment motion without it.

There is also a pattern worth noting. Pittman has now rebuffed aggressive discovery demands from both sides of this case. In January, he denied X's bid to force OpenAI to turn over its source code, finding the request neither relevant to the antitrust claims nor proportional to the needs of the case — pointedly noting that while the docket was then already stuffed with more than 130 entries, it was "replete with countless discovery disputes." The judge, it seems, has little patience for fishing expeditions, whichever party casts the line.

The case against OpenAI is still very much alive

Thursday's ruling changes nothing about the core dispute. Musk's companies filed suit in August 2025, accusing Apple and OpenAI of colluding to lock competing AI apps out of the market — the complaint opened by calling the case "a tale of two monopolists joining forces." Its targets were Apple's integration of ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence, announced in June 2024, and the alleged deprioritization of rival chatbots in App Store rankings. X and xAI sought billions of dollars in damages.

Both defendants denied wrongdoing from the start. Apple has maintained that its OpenAI arrangement is not exclusive, and OpenAI has characterized the lawsuit as a "campaign of lawfare" by Musk. Pittman denied both companies' motions to dismiss in November 2025 — while stressing that his order should not be read as a judgment on the merits.

The case's schedule remains intact. An order entered in April moved the trial from October 2026 to January 11, 2027, and mediation is set for December 4, 2026. Apple's exit narrows the fight but does not end it: X and SpaceXAI kept every claim against the three OpenAI entities — OpenAI Foundation (formerly OpenAI, Inc.), OpenAI, L.L.C., and OpenAI OpCo, LLC.

What happens next

OpenAI's summary judgment motion is now the event to watch. If it succeeds, Musk's years-long legal campaign against OpenAI takes its biggest hit yet; if it fails, the case barrels toward a January 2027 trial in Fort Worth, with Grok's distribution disadvantage on iPhones at the center of the courtroom.

One footnote will likely haunt the case regardless: the sealed Apple agreement. Its terms are known only to Apple, Musk's companies, and Judge Pittman — and the judge has already told the world they don't matter. Unless something surfaces in discovery or at trial, "resolved" is all anyone else will ever get.

One thing Thursday's order makes clear: Pittman is running a tight courtroom. Both sides have now learned that aggressive discovery tactics — whether demanding a rival's source code or a co-defendant's secret deal — will get a short hearing and, so far, a short no. The case will be won or lost on the evidence both sides already have.

Sources: 9to5Mac (Sept. 17, 2026), Reuters (Sept. 16, 2026), Bloomberg Tax (Sept. 15, 2026), The Mac Observer (Sept. 15, 2026), Gizmodo (Sept. 2026), 9to5Mac (Jan. 22, 2026).