Apple OpenAI Lawsuit: OpenAI Says "Apple Is Getting This Wrong"

At this point, it’s public knowledge that the relationship between OpenAI and Apple is no longer in a good place.

Just a few weeks ago, Apple sued the AI company, accusing it of misappropriating trade secrets. At the time, OpenAI responded by saying it had “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets.”

Now, the company has come out swinging in a new blog post titled “Apple is getting this wrong,” describing the lawsuit as “careless, aggressive, and oddly personal.” It also published iMessage and email exchanges (as shown below) in an attempt to challenge Apple’s version of events.

What Apple claimed vs. how OpenAI responded

In its lawsuit, Apple claimed OpenAI had “never responded” to concerns about the alleged theft of its trade secrets.

OpenAI disputes that claim, saying:

“Apple had claimed that they contacted OpenAI in February and that we didn’t respond. They now admit that their outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names — only after we brought this to their attention.”

OpenAI’s account appears to align with an earlier report from NBC News.

Apple’s lawsuit centres on two former employees: Chang Liu, a former iPhone engineer, and Tang Tan, who spent 25 years at Apple overseeing iPhone and Apple Watch design before becoming OpenAI’s chief hardware officer.

Apple alleges they took “secret and confidential information regarding our unreleased technologies, processes, and products” to advance OpenAI’s hardware ambitions.

Specifically, Apple claims Liu failed to return a work laptop, exploited an authentication bug, and downloaded “dozens of Apple’s confidential hardware-related files.”