X lawsuit vs. Apple and OpenAI stays in Fort Worth, Texas; judge suggests they move there

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2 months ago

October 19, 2025

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Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

A judge ordered that X and xAI’s lawsuit accusing Apple and OpenAI of trying to maintain monopolies in artificial intelligence markets must remain in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, despite “at best minimal connections” to that geographic area by any of the companies.

Judge Mark Pittman, in a sharply ironic four-page order on Thursday, encouraged the companies to relocate their headquarters to Fort Worth, given their preference for the antitrust lawsuit to be heard there.

In a footnote, he even flagged the companies to the website of the Business Services unit of the City of Fort Worth “to get the process started” of relocating there.

Pittman’s order implicitly aims at the tendency of some plaintiffs of a conservative bent to file lawsuits in the Fort Worth division of the U.S. Northern District of Texas courts to increase their chances of winning favorable rulings from the two active judges there, both of whom were appointed by Republicans.

Those plaintiffs have included X and Tesla, both controlled by mega-billionaire Elon Musk, who, until earlier this year, was a top advisor to President Donald Trump.

Pittman was appointed by Trump, but has been critical of the practice of targeting lawsuits to specific judicial districts, known as forum-shopping.

In his order on Thursday, Pittman said that the Fort Worth division’s docket is two to three times busier than the docket of the Dallas division, which has more judges.

Pittman’s order noted that neither Apple nor OpenAI has a strong connection to Fort Worth, other than several Apple stores.

“And, of course, under that logic, there is not a district and division in the entire United States that would not be an appropriate venue for this lawsuit,” Pittman wrote.

X Corp. is headquartered in Bastrop, Texas — roughly 200 miles south of Fort Worth — while both Apple and OpenAI are headquartered in California. Musk’s xAI acquired his social media company X in March in an all-stock transaction.

“Given the present desire to have venue in Fort Worth, the numerous high-stakes lawsuits previously adjudicated in the Fort Worth Division, and the vitality of Fort Worth, the Court highly encourages the Parties to consider moving their headquarters to Fort Worth,” the judge wrote.

“Fort Worth has much more going for it than just the unique artwork on the fourth floor of its historic federal courthouse,” Pittman said.

The judge had asked the three companies to explain why the case belonged in the Fort Worth court.

But neither Apple nor OpenAI requested that the case be moved before the judge’s Oct. 9 deadline, Pittman noted in the order.

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Still, Pittman opted to keep the case in the Fort Worth division.

“The fact that neither Defendant filed a motion to transfer venue serves as a consideration for the Court,” the judge wrote. “And the Court ‘respect[s]’ Plaintiffs’ choice of venue.”

“But the Court does not make its decision lightly or without reservations. This case contains at best minimal connections to the Fort Worth Division of the Northern District of Texas,” Pittman wrote. “Possibly one of the strongest points made by Plaintiffs is the mere fact that ‘Apple sell[s] iPhones [in this Division] (and many other products) and OpenAI offer[s] ChatGPT nationwide.'”

“After more than a decade of service presiding over thousands of cases in three different courts, the undersigned continues to feel strongly that ‘[v]enue is not a continental breakfast; you cannot pick and choose on a Plaintiffs’ whim where and how a lawsuit is filed,'” the judge sniped.

But Pittman noted that he had little, if any, choice in the decision to keep the suit in his courthouse.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes federal courts in Texas, has raised “the standard for transferring venue to new heights,” Pittman wrote.

Last year, the 5th Circuit twice slapped down orders by Pittman to transfer to Washington, D.C., a lawsuit by trade groups representing large banks challenging a rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which capped credit card late fees at $8 per month.

The 5th Circuit said Pittman’s court “clearly abused its discretion” in trying to move the case.

OpenAI declined to comment to CNBC, referring a reporter to its public filings in the lawsuit. X and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk’s X and xAI sued Apple and OpenAI in August, alleging the companies of an “anticompetitive scheme” to maintain monopolies in artificial intelligence markets.

The lawsuit accused Apple of favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT on its App Store rankings and deprioritizing other competitors, such as xAI’s Grok.

Earlier this month, a judge in Washington, D.C., blocked Musk’s request to move the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit over his alleged improper disclosure of his stake in Twitter to Texas. Musk renamed Twitter to X after purchasing the company.

Technology

Motive, an Alphabet-backed fleet management software company, files for IPO

Published

4 hours ago

December 23, 2025

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Motive, an Alphabet-backed fleet management software company, files for IPO

Direxion signage at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. The holiday-shortened week started with gains in stocks amid a broad advance that saw a continuation of the bullish momentum on Wall Street.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Motive, a company with software for managing corporate trucks and drivers, on Tuesday filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MTVE.”

The paperwork puts Motive among a fast-growing group of tech companies looking to go public in 2026. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX have all reportedly considered making their shares widely available for trading next year.

Motive is smaller, reporting a $62.7 million net loss on $115.8 million in revenue in the third quarter. The loss widened from $41.3 million in the same quarter of 2024, while revenue grew about 23% year over year. The company had almost 100,000 clients at the end of September.

Ryan Johns, Obaid Khan and Shoaib Makani started Motive in 2013, originally under the name Keep Truckin. Makani, the CEO, is Khan’s brother-in-law.

Investors include Alphabet’s GV, Base10 Partners, Greenoaks, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Scale Venture Partners.

Motive’s AI Dashcam device for detecting unsafe driving “has prevented 170,000 collisions and saved 1,500 lives on our roads,” Makani wrote in a letter to investors. Most revenue comes from subscriptions, although Motive does sell replacement hardware and professional services.

The San Francisco company changed its name to Motive in 2022, and as of Sept. 30, it employed 4,508 people. Motive employs 400 full-time data annotators who apply labels that are meant to enhance artificial intelligence models.

Motive has ongoing patent-infringement litigation with competitor Samsara, which went public in 2021 and today has a $22 billion market capitalization.

WATCH: AI IPO boom next year? The changing 2026 IPO landscape

Technology

Why an analyst sees Meta shares getting back to record highs – plus, another tariff reprieve

Published

7 hours ago

December 23, 2025

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Why an analyst sees Meta shares getting back to record highs – plus, another tariff reprieve

Technology

U.S. pushes additional tariffs on Chinese chips to June 2027

Published

10 hours ago

December 23, 2025

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U.S. pushes additional tariffs on Chinese chips to June 2027

A silicon wafer with chips etched into is seen as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris tours a site where Applied Materials plans to build a research facility, in Sunnyvale, California, U.S., May 22, 2023.

Pool | Reuters

The U.S. will increase tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports in June 2027, at a rate to be determined at least a month in advance, the Trump administration said in a Federal Register filing on Tuesday.

But in the meantime, the initial tariff rate on semiconductor imports from China will be zero for 18 months, according to the filing from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

As part of an investigation that kicked off a year ago, the agency found that China is engaging in unfair trade practices in the industry.

“For decades, China has targeted the semiconductor industry for dominance and has employed increasingly aggressive and sweeping non-market policies and practices in pursuing dominance of the sector,” the office said in the filing.

The decision to delay new tariffs for at least 18 months signals that the Trump administration is seeking to cool any trade hostilities between the U.S. and China.