OpenAI Posts Public Rebuttal to Apple's Trade Secrets Lawsuit

[MacRumors]

Apple has asked a federal judge for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI as its trade secrets lawsuit escalates, and OpenAI responded hours later with a detailed public rebuttal that includes internal messages and legal correspondence.

Reuters reports that Apple yesterday filed a motion seeking to bar OpenAI and two former employees, Chang Liu and Tang Tan, from accessing, using, or disclosing its alleged confidential information, along with a request for expedited discovery. "Apple will be irreparably harmed absent a preliminary injunction," the company said in its filing.

Apple originally sued OpenAI on July 10, alleging that former Apple engineer Liu and former Apple design executive Tan ran a scheme to funnel confidential product information to OpenAI's hardware business. OpenAI has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying it has "no interest in other companies' trade secrets."

Late on Monday evening, OpenAI published a blog post titled "Apple is getting this wrong," calling the lawsuit "careless, aggressive and oddly personal." The company disputes Apple's account of its pre-litigation contact, saying Apple's outside counsel emailed the wrong person in February after confusing two Asian last names, and published the underlying email chain showing the mix-up, along with an apology from Apple's counsel. OpenAI says it heard nothing further about the specific allegations for five months before Apple filed suit.

OpenAI published iMessage exchanges it says show Apple employees repeatedly asking Liu for help locating files and technical information after his January 22 departure, including directing a colleague to AirDrop files from his Apple-linked iCloud account. The same messages show an Apple employee still asking Liu about internal files as late as March 5, with another participant in the thread calling the exchange "highly irregular."

OpenAI also defended Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple before joining io Products, the hardware startup he co-founded with Jony Ive, which merged with OpenAI in July 2025. "Tang has always been clear with the team that we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies," OpenAI said.

Apple's complaint claims more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. A hearing on Apple's injunction request has not yet been scheduled.

Article Link: OpenAI Posts Public Rebuttal to Apple's Trade Secrets Lawsuit

 

[Fidgetyrat]

For one of the wealthiest companies in the world: treat your critical employees better and they won't leave... Maybe your engineers should receive .00001% of what your CEOs and executives make.

 

[aaronage]

So, they're approaching this like YouTube drama or a Twitter beef?

Classy company

 

[boswald]

This is about to get really good!

🍿

 

[Pitogyro]

Moral of the story: top lawyers can charge thousands per hour, yet when it comes to sending an email to the right person, an admin assistant is probably more reliable.

 

[svish]

Will be very interesting to see what happens with this case. Don't think this is going to end anytime soon.

 

[mw360]

The "denied any wrongdoing" link, goes to their carefully worded non-denial. I was interested to see if this denial actually denies it, but the article doesn't say. I took a look and, well...

"Apple also accuses Tang Tan of trying to get and use their trade secrets. However, Tang has always been clear with the team that we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies. Tang served Apple for more than 24 years and was widely known as one of the most innovative leaders at the company."

I don't know, is that a denial? Not really.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Scam Altman the greatest salesman in history has absolutely no problem conning you out of your money(ask MSFT) so why would he ever not steal your IP?……”openAI guilty on all counts sir”

 

[neuropsychguy]

For one of the wealthiest companies in the world: treat your critical employees better and they won't leave... Maybe your engineers should receive .00001% of what your CEOs and executives make.

I'm treated very well by my employer and love my job, but if I was offered more money to work on something else I liked at a different employer, I'd easily switch jobs.

In other words, let's not assume that people leave because they are treated poorly or aren't compensated well. People get new jobs all the time for many reasons. Some people just like change, at least every once in a while. I'm not saying Apple is the perfect employer (I've never worked for them so I can't speak from personal experience), but insinuating it's somehow Apple's fault people (even 400) left to work for OpenAI is an unwarranted claim. The tech industry can be particularly fickle.

 

[FNi]

Read the whole blog post and texts, and it doesn't really prove or disprove anything? Not sure what OpenAI was hoping to get out of this.

All it demonstrates is Chang Liu, in a perhaps naive attempt to help his former team, let them keep his account connected and then discussed things he shouldn't. In the real world stuff like this happens, but you keep it quiet and definitely don't use it as "proof" of no wrongdoing. All it proves is nobody in that chain correctly follows company protocol.

And Apple's outside legal council once made a email error? Okay? OpenAI's General Council responding in such an unprofessional tone ("This guy from Weil...") isn't a good look either.

 

[FontGeek]

Scam Altman the greatest salesman in history has absolutely no problem stealing all your money so why would he ever not steal your IP?……”openAI guilty on all counts sir”

I can see the headline: “Company built on business model of creating products built on other companies’ data maintains ‘We have no interest in other companies’ data.’”

 

[one more]

Scam Altman the greatest salesman in history has absolutely no problem stealing all your money so why would he ever not steal your IP?……”openAI guilty on all counts sir”

How is he “stealing all your money”? ChatGPT is actually one of the very few AI agents that lets us use it for basic tasks for free and without having to log-in. Pretty good by today’s standards, IMO.

 

[Criss P.]

Hard to believe Apple’s legal team would file something this high-profile without having the facts locked down. They know exactly how much publicity this case is getting; exposing themselves with a sloppy filing would be a self-own of epic proportions.

 

[Plutonius]

Was the rebuttal written by OpenAI ?

 

[wonderings]

How is he “stealing all your money”? ChatGPT is actually one of the very few AI agents that lets us use it for basic tasks for free and without having to log-in. Pretty good by today’s standards, IMO.

Anyone who goes against Apple is automatically the bad guy because Apple is innocent and would never harvest its user data for its own gain.

 

[applicious84]

Was the rebuttal written by OpenAI ?

Claude

 

[Rogifan]

Clearly this isn’t a response to the entire lawsuit.

 

[mk313]

For one of the wealthiest companies in the world: treat your critical employees better and they won't leave... Maybe your engineers should receive .00001% of what your CEOs and executives make.

Tim Cook made 74.6 Million dollars last year? Are you suggesting that Apple pays their critical employees less than $746/year?

 

[Falco McGregor]

Clearly this isn’t a response to the entire lawsuit.

It’s a lot of cherry-picked information and clearly put out there to counter Apple asking the court yesterday for an injunction against OpenAI. The name mixup with the lawyer is definitely embarrassing, but it doesn’t actually prove Apple is wrong on the merits or OpenAI had no knowledge or contact with Apple on this issue. Apple lawyers fumbled and gave OpenAI some narrative ammo (the fact both were Asian was the cherry on top), but until both parties submit to discovery, this is a PR document and not a legal rebuttal. If OpenAI is confident in their version of events, put it in a filing where there are consequences.

 

[Falco McGregor]

Hard to believe Apple’s legal team would file something this high-profile without having the facts locked down. They know exactly how much publicity this case is getting; exposing themselves with a sloppy filing would be a self-own of epic proportions.

Agreed that it’s definitely sloppy, but mixing up names in an email exchange doesn’t actually refute the charges. Apple could’ve brought this suit without ever having contacted OpenAI initially if it believed in the evidence it gathered.

 

[uacd]

This lawsuit won’t help Apple and they will probably lose, they won’t prove any wrongdoing by OpenAI no matter how hard they try. They are 5 trillion dollar company, and should better think about how awful their software is, their upcoming foldable phone and that it is gonna to be even worse failure than AVP. Everyone steals trade secrets, the most successful do it in stealth mode. Samsung should have patented their variable aperture, curved screen and foldable designs so that when Apple decides to incorporate it into their phones they will meet the lawsuit instead

 

[Plutonius]

Anyone who goes against Apple is automatically the bad guy because Apple is innocent and would never harvest its user data for its own gain.

Conversely, many people on the forums automatically think that Apple is the bad guy.

Apple is just another corporation and the truth is probably somewhere in between.

 

[Timpetus]

Read the whole blog post and texts, and it doesn't really prove or disprove anything? Not sure what OpenAI was hoping to get out of this.

All it demonstrates is Chang Liu, in a perhaps naive attempt to help his former team, let them keep his account connected and then discussed things he shouldn't. In the real world stuff like this happens, but you keep it quiet and definitely don't use it as "proof" of no wrongdoing. All it proves is nobody in that chain correctly follows company protocol.

And Apple's outside legal council once made a email error? Okay? OpenAI's General Council responding in such an unprofessional tone ("This guy from Weil...") isn't a good look either.

OpenAI hopes to get as much not-legally-actionable FUD out there as they can. If they unambiguously deny things they actually did, those are lies and will hurt their case. The best they can hope for is to stir up a big cloud of dust that mostly hides what they did enough that the entire company doesn't get what it deserves: to be shut down forever.

 

[vantelimus]

For one of the wealthiest companies in the world: treat your critical employees better and they won't leave... Maybe your engineers should receive .00001% of what your CEOs and executives make.

Cook makes about $75 million/year. Median total annual compensation for engineers at Apple is around $300k. Let's do the arithmetic:

.00001% of $75 million is $75,000,000*.00001/100=$7.50.
​

SVPs make around $30 million/year. Your target .00001% of that would be $3. So, you want engineers to take quite a pay cut.

Apple compensates and treats its employees well. The Silicon Valley is very competitive for talent and there's always incentive for engineers to job hop for money, promotion, mission, responsibility, and/or resume building.

The average tenure of a software engineer in the Valley is one to two years. The overall average in the US is around four years. The median tenure for engineers at Apple is approximately 4.9 years. Apple actually has one of the better retention rates in the Valley and it beats the national average. According to resume analyses (e.g. by SignalFire, Crustdata, etc.) the order of retention goes pretty much: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Netflix, and NVIDIA.

So, what the hell are you talking about?

 

[aka777]

For one of the wealthiest companies in the world: treat your critical employees better and they won't leave... Maybe your engineers should receive .00001% of what your CEOs and executives make.

Reminds me of the Ford CEO recently complaining that there is a huge shortage of mechanics. He had about 1001 reasons for it just not the fact that stealerships charge $250 per hour, all while actually paying the mechanic doing the work $19. He effectively earns approximately $13,000 per hour btw.