The OpenAI X Antitrust suit intensified this week as OpenAI urged a federal judge in Texas to block the deposition of one of its former executives, arguing he had no involvement in the controversial Apple-ChatGPT integration now at the heart of the legal storm.

In a brief filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, OpenAI said Jan Leike — once co-head of its “superalignment” team — was far removed from the management circle that negotiated the agreement with Apple. The company described efforts to question him under oath as little more than a strategic dragnet.

Deposition or “Fishing Expedition”?

OpenAI characterized X Corp.’s attempt to depose Leike as a “fishing expedition,” alleging the move is designed to unearth internal documents that could cast doubt on the company’s leadership or business decisions.

Leike’s role, OpenAI emphasized, centered on aligning advanced artificial intelligence systems with human intent — long-term guardrails meant to prevent future AI models from veering off course. That work, the company said, had nothing to do with the commercial and privacy considerations behind Apple’s decision to integrate ChatGPT into its devices.

According to the filing, Leike departed OpenAI just 12 days after the Apple agreement was signed — and months before the integration was rolled out to users.

X’s legal team, however, signaled a different view. In an email appended to OpenAI’s brief, counsel for X pointed to a social media thread in which Leike criticized ChatGPT for favoring “shiny products” over safety. X contends that such remarks suggest Leike may possess documents relevant to challenging Apple’s assertion that ChatGPT was selected because it is the safest available option.

OpenAI countered that the comments referenced concerns about future AI systems, not the specific ChatGPT models deployed in Apple’s ecosystem.

“Mr. Leike’s work safeguarding against the dangers of future superintelligent artificial general intelligence is far afield” from the privacy and user security issues Apple may have weighed in its integration decision, the company argued.

Narrow Discovery or Expansive Probe?

At the center of the dispute lies a broader question: how far discovery in the OpenAI X Antitrust suit should reach.

OpenAI maintained that any safety and privacy documents subject to disclosure should be limited strictly to materials actually shared with Apple during negotiations. Because Leike was not part of those talks, the company said, he is unlikely to possess relevant communications.

The company also rejected X’s assertion that by promoting privacy protections as a benefit to Apple users, it placed its entire safety track record into contention.

The privacy assurances cited in the Apple deal, OpenAI clarified, refer specifically to the architectural choice not to retain Apple users’ IP addresses. Plaintiffs, OpenAI argued, cannot transform that narrow representation into a sweeping inquiry into every internal safety discussion the company has ever had.

“Plaintiffs cannot bootstrap a statement about specific privacy protections attendant to the integration’s architecture into wide-ranging discovery,” the brief stated.

“A Tale of Two Monopolists”?

The deposition dispute follows X’s earlier unsuccessful effort to obtain OpenAI’s source code through discovery. In its original complaint filed last year, X portrayed the partnership between Apple and OpenAI as “a tale of two monopolists,” alleging the alliance was designed to choke off competition — including X’s own AI offering, Grok.

Apple previously sought to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that its arrangement with OpenAI is non-exclusive. That effort failed to end the litigation.

OpenAI has framed the broader case as part of what it describes as a multipronged “lawfare” campaign orchestrated by X owner Elon Musk to secure competitive leverage.

Musk has separately sued OpenAI in California federal court over the company’s now-abandoned transition toward a for-profit structure. That lawsuit also names Microsoft — a major OpenAI shareholder — as a defendant.

Counsel Line Up as Battle Expands

As the OpenAI X Antitrust suit gathers momentum, heavyweight legal teams stand on both sides of the aisle.

X Corp. is represented by Bradley Justus, Craig M. Reiser, Scott A. Eisman, Eva Yung and Christopher Erickson of Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP, along with Judd E. Stone II and Noah Schottenstein of Stone Hilton PLLC.

OpenAI is represented by Michael K. Hurst, Chris W. Patton and Andy Kim of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann LLP, and by William Savitt, Kevin S. Schwartz and Stephen D. Levandoski of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

Apple’s legal team includes Dee J. Kelly Jr. and Julia G. Wisenberg of Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP, as well as Emily Johnson Henn, Henry Liu, Lauren Willard Zehmer and Carol Szurkowski Weiland of Covington & Burling LLP.

OpenAI and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

As discovery skirmishes unfold, the courtroom battle resembles a chess match played at silicon speed — each motion a calculated move in a high-stakes contest over AI dominance, market power and the rules of competition in a rapidly shifting technological era.