OpenAI rejects Apple trade-secret suit, calls it 'oddly personal'

OpenAI has publicly pushed back on Apple’s trade-secret lawsuit, publishing a post that called the case “careless, aggressive and oddly personal.”

OpenAI has also accused Apple of misstating the timeline of events that led to the filing. Notably, more than 400 former Apple employees already work at OpenAI. 

Is Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI really personal? 

Apple’s case against OpenAI accuses Chang Liu, a former employee, of tapping confidential information after his departure. Apple has also accused Tang Tan of seeking and using its trade secrets. 

OpenAI responded to the lawsuit with a post unwinding Apple’s version of the events that led up to the suit. 

Directly addressing the claims in the suit, OpenAI revealed Apple’s own employees messaged Liu asking him to help them find files. To back that up, OpenAI published iMessages that it says are between Liu, whose last day at Apple was January 22, 2026, and former colleagues asking him to locate documents and complete file transfers. 

OpenAI says the “residual access,” which Liu had, is due to Apple failing to cut off system access when people leave, so departing staff keep getting access to files they neither want nor know they still hold.

In the case of Tan, who spent more than 24 years at Apple, OpenAI said it has been explicit with the team that it does not want and will not use confidential material from other firms.

Apple also said it reached out to OpenAI in February and got no reply, but according to OpenAI, Apple now admits its outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after mixing up two Asian last names, and only conceded that after OpenAI flagged it.

OpenAI also says Apple claimed a conversation took place with OpenAI’s general counsel that, by Apple’s own later admission, never happened. 

OpenAI said that Apple never raised the specific allegations now in the lawsuit during any earlier contact, and at one point told OpenAI it was “resolving any issues.” Five months of silence followed before the suit landed, the company wrote.

What is Apple asking a court to do?

Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction, an early court order meant to freeze conduct while a case proceeds. A request OpenAI has called both baseless and pointless, saying it holds none of Apple’s trade secrets and has no interest in them. 

Apple’s broader allegation against OpenAI is that the company used internal Apple codenames to pull confidential information out of job candidates.

Cryptopolitan has reported that Apple lost a string of researchers from its Foundation Models team to Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Cohere, including team lead Ruoming Pang, who left for a Meta package reported at over $200 million. 

OpenAI says it previously offered to work with Apple on the allegations and would have clarified the details had Apple asked first. 

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