OpenAI has issued a public rebuttal to Apple’s trade secret lawsuit, saying several of Apple’s allegations do not match the underlying facts and arguing that the case reflects a breakdown in basic accuracy.
In the statement, attributed to OpenAI and translated by TechFlow, the company said Apple’s lawyers mixed up two Asian surnames and sent an email to the wrong person. OpenAI also said Apple had claimed its lawyers spoke with OpenAI’s general counsel, but has now acknowledged that no such call ever happened.
OpenAI says Apple made three factual mistakes
According to OpenAI, Apple said it contacted the company in February and received no response. OpenAI said the real issue was that Apple’s outside counsel sent the message to the wrong recipient after confusing two Asian surnames, and only admitted the mistake after OpenAI pointed it out.
OpenAI also said Apple claimed there had been a phone call with its general counsel. Apple has now admitted that the call never took place, according to OpenAI. The company added that Apple has still left out another detail: at the time, Apple did not raise the specific allegations that later appeared in the lawsuit, and instead said it was “working through all issues.” After that, OpenAI said, there was no further contact for five months until Apple filed suit.
OpenAI separately challenged Apple’s allegations involving Chang Liu. Apple had accused Liu of obtaining Apple confidential information after leaving the company. OpenAI said Apple now admits that Apple employees themselves contacted Liu and asked him to help locate the information in question. OpenAI added that Apple is trying to shift responsibility to “residual access permissions,” while failing to say that former employees were still able to access Apple files because the company did not properly manage system permissions during offboarding. OpenAI said some former employees who wanted to do the right thing still had access they did not want and did not even know they retained.
On Tang Tan, OpenAI disputed Apple’s claim that he sought to obtain and use Apple trade secrets. OpenAI said Tan had consistently made clear to his team that they did not want, and could not use, any confidential information from other companies. The company also said Tan spent more than 24 years at Apple and was widely regarded internally as one of its most innovative leaders.
OpenAI says the dispute could have been clarified before the lawsuit
OpenAI said it wishes Apple had spoken with the company before filing the case, because the issues could have been clarified at that stage. It said it took the allegations seriously and proactively offered to work with Apple to resolve them. Instead, OpenAI said, Apple changed its narrative, made vague accusations involving other former employees, and may continue using the same approach.
OpenAI also argued that Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction is based on false information and is unnecessary. The company said it does not have Apple’s trade secrets and does not want them, adding that its focus is on building innovative products and advancing the frontier of technology.
Emails and chat records were cited in the response
The response refers to chat records showing that Chang Liu’s last working day was Jan. 22, 2026. OpenAI said former colleagues contacted him after his departure and asked for help locating files and information to support their Apple work. It noted that all timestamps were listed in UTC and that other personal names and Apple confidential information were redacted.
OpenAI also described email exchanges involving Apple outside lawyer Gabriel Gross, OpenAI general counsel Che Chang, and Apple in-house legal staff. According to OpenAI, those emails show that Gross mistakenly sent a message to Che Chang and inaccurately said the two had spoken by phone. Gross and Apple’s internal legal team later confirmed that this was an error, OpenAI said, and Gross stated that they were “working through all issues.” OpenAI added that the specific allegations later included in Apple’s lawsuit were never mentioned in those emails, and that no additional follow-up came before the lawsuit was filed five months later.