As OpenAI accused xAI of systematically destroying internal communications, the court also rejected xAI’s attempt to add a high-ranking former OpenAI researcher to the discovery process. Here are the latest developments in this increasingly complex lawsuit.
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If you’ve been following the xAI lawsuit accusing Apple and OpenAI of colluding to prevent competition on the App Store platform, you probably know that it has little to do with App Store rankings. You probably also know that xAI has been repeatedly accused of engaging in “phishing” and requesting disproportionate amounts of documents, many of which appear unrelated to the complaint.
Just last January, South Korea rejected xAI’s request for documents from the Kakao, citing that the scope of the request was disproportionate and overly broad. A week later, a U.S. court rejected xAI’s request to see OpenAI’s source code, concluding that “OpenAI’s source code is not relevant to the plaintiffs’ claims and does not fall within the scope of discovery.”
Now, the court has rejected another request from xAI, this one involving Jan Leike, a former head of alignment at OpenAI who left the company in 2024 for Anthropic. Musk’s company had asked the court to include Leike on the list of executives and former executives who would be required to provide documents for discovery, claiming that he “likely sent or received documents that are relevant to the claims or defenses in this case,” according to the court’s description.
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However, the court rejected xAI’s request this week, stating: “The Court finds that the appointment of Mr. Leike as records officer in this case is not appropriate. Mr. Leike and any documents he sent or received do not appear to be relevant or proportionate to the needs of the case.”
The decision came after OpenAI argued that “this request is a phishing scam because it is unlikely that Mr. Leike would have sent or received relevant documents as he was working on a separate project and was not involved in the implementation of Apple AI.”
In other news related to the case, OpenAI accuses xAI of directing employees to use “self-destructing messaging tools” that automatically delete messages and documents. OpenAI also accuses xAI of concealing documents, stating that Musk’s company “has not produced a single non-public document relevant to the substance of their allegations or that OpenAI could use in its defense,” and that “plaintiffs have not produced any emails, text messages, Signal messages, or XChat messages of any kind.”
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In legal cases like this, all parties are required to turn over internal communications that may be relevant to either side, in a process called discovery. Failure to do so can result in sanctions from the court, including penalties.
