OpenAI fires back at Apple's trade secret lawsuit with chat logs showing Apple employees kept texting their former colleague

OpenAI fires back at Apple's trade secret lawsuit with chat logs showing Apple employees kept texting their former colleague

OpenAI is pushing back against Apple's trade secret lawsuit and has released chat messages that it says show Apple employees themselves reached out to their former colleague Chang Liu for technical information.

In a blog post, OpenAI accused the iPhone maker of taking a sloppy and unnecessarily aggressive approach. Apple sued OpenAI in a federal court in California for what it calls the systematic theft of trade secrets, alleging that former Apple engineer Chang Liu improperly accessed confidential information after joining OpenAI. Apple also accuses OpenAI of actively encouraging departing employees to steal files and specifications during their notice periods.

Apple employees kept reaching out to their former colleague

According to the published messages, Liu's last day at Apple was January 22, 2026. On that same day and in the weeks that followed, Apple employees repeatedly contacted him to ask technical questions and get his help tracking down internal files.

A message from January 27, 2026, shows an Apple employee asking Liu for a technical assessment and writing, "Of course, I could ask several folks, but you are the best. Even if you don't work here anymore." Liu responded with details about internal Apple decisions.

On February 14, 2026, the same employee asked about schematics. On March 5, Liu was added to a group chat with several Apple employees, where he directed them to internal folders and contacts. Liu ended the conversation himself, writing, "Hi, this is highly irregular, please remove me from this thread." OpenAI argues that "residual access," meaning continued access to systems after an employee leaves, is a well-known problem at Apple caused by poor access management.

Liu is just one part of a much broader case, though. According to the complaint, more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, and the lawsuit ties into OpenAI's growing hardware ambitions around the startup io Products, co-founded by Jony Ive, Apple's iconic former designer.

OpenAI also rejects the allegations against Tang Tan, who spent more than 24 years at Apple and was considered one of the company's most innovative executives. According to OpenAI, Tan consistently told his team that proprietary information from other companies was neither welcome nor to be used.

Apple's lawyers mixed up Asian last names

Apple also made mistakes when reaching out to OpenAI, according to the published emails. Apple had claimed it contacted OpenAI as early as February without receiving a response. In reality, an outside lawyer hired by Apple wrote to the wrong person because he confused two Asian last names. He also claimed to have spoken with OpenAI's General Counsel by phone, which OpenAI says never happened.

Apple only acknowledged both errors after OpenAI pointed them out. The specific allegations that later appeared in the lawsuit were never raised in that earlier correspondence. Instead, Apple's lawyer said the company was working to "sort out any issues." Five months of silence followed before Apple filed suit.

While the chat messages and email blunders make for compelling reading, they don't refute Apple's core accusations. Liu's iMessage threads may show that Apple had its own access management problems, but they don't address the broader claim that OpenAI encouraged new hires to bring proprietary information with them.

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