Apple's Lawsuit Against OpenAI Is Based on False Claims, Says OpenAI

Apple is getting this wrong

Apple's Lawsuit Against OpenAI Is Based on False Claims, Says OpenAI

OpenAI responds to Apple's lawsuit, denying allegations of trade secret theft and accusing Apple of misrepresenting the facts. OpenAI reveals that Apple's lawyers emailed the wrong person due to confusion over Asian last names, and that Apple never raised the specific allegations before suing. OpenAI also presents messages showing Apple employees asked a former employee for help locating files, and argues that Apple's own access management failures caused any residual access.

We wish Apple had raised these issues with us before they filed their lawsuit and would have been happy to clarify all of this with them.
  1. efnx

    Is it normal for a company this big to make a public blog post like this with almost no introduction to what they’re on about?

    I would expect them to start out with something like Apple is suing us for yada yada yada, but instead it reads like the diary of a hurt teenager.

  2. asimpletune

    What really matters is the claim that Apple never raised those issues in the lawsuit with them. OpenAI claims the emails prove this, but to me all the emails prove is Apple sent an email that said “please see the attached letters”. We don’t know what is in the attachments but I imagine those were the relevant issues they raised.

    Moreover OpenAI says, “[Apple] now admits that Apple employees reached out to him and asked for his help to locate this information”, but the transcript they cite seems to me to show the opposite? It’s Chang Liu asking for someone to help him copy data. The part where Apple employees reach out is later and it’s not for copying data to a hard drive… it’s basically “who should I talk to about this project?” Which makes sense because when he was contacted it was after he left (so he wouldn’t have access to data)

    Can someone please tell me what am I missing? None of this makes sense with what they’re saying. The fact that the lawyer emailed the wrong person is moot if they caught it and resolved it days later.

  3. gr_norm

    Setting aside the presented evidence, it feels weird for somewhat emotionally charged complaining like this to go on an official company blog. Companies are generally pretty tight-lipped about active litigation outside court documents, right? This just seems a bit amateurish, down to the title. Is public opinion about this case so important to them?

  4. tomburgs

    Despite whether what OpenAI alleges in the blog post is true or not, it's super odd that a company of their size would make a blog post about it.

    This looks like a company that's in a downward spiral. They're doing anything they can to attempt to salvage their reputation, maybe because when the court date finally rolls around it might already be too late.

  5. prmoustache

    When I look at the imessage conversation, one thing strikes me: that guy looks to be using the same icloud account he used when working for Apple with OpenAI. Is he using his own personal account? Why do both Apple and OpenAI allow that in the first place, this look so amateur. I would have assumed each company would have opened a different account for him and locked him when leaving.

    Is it standard practice at both Apple and OpenAI for employees to use their personal icloud account for work?

  6. dbgrman

    Not buying it. In the end, OpenAI will throw these people under the bus and settle out.

    I'm not Apple's biggest fan either (I got super upset when they conveniently wiped out all information about the person comiting suicide in one of their conference rooms and TMZ caught the police line and the sherif said "there is a gun, next to a dead person, we can't say much at the moment" and that was it). But it is unlikely that Apple would depriortize its brand on a fake story.

  7. brap

    Many years ago, back when I was a junior, I wrote something like this to my manager, complaining about another employee who has wronged me. I eventually decided not to send it because it just seemed so unprofessional.

    Wild that a company this big would post this on their official, public blog.

  8. Taikhoom2010

    Odd, regardless, OpenAI is spreading itself too thin, trying to fight wars on the enterprise, consumer, and hardware fronts, and will likely end up losing them all.

    Models are a lost cause anyway - https://open.substack.com/pub/taikhooms/p/why-openrouter-can...

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2026-08-04