OpenAI is pushing back against Apple’s trade-secret lawsuit with an unusually pointed response, arguing that the case rests on disputed communications, misunderstood employee access and accusations that should have been discussed before reaching a courtroom.
The company does not merely deny possessing Apple’s confidential information. It contends that Apple mishandled its initial outreach, mischaracterized conversations between the companies and overlooked the role its own employees allegedly played in contacting a former colleague who retained access to internal files.
Those assertions have not been independently established, and Apple’s detailed response to them is not included in OpenAI’s account. Still, the rebuttal lays out the central fault line in the Apple OpenAI lawsuit: Apple appears to view the conduct of former employees as a threat to its trade secrets, while OpenAI says the available communications point to confusion and flawed offboarding rather than an attempt to take proprietary information.
A disputed start to the legal fight
One of OpenAI’s main objections concerns how Apple’s lawyers approached the company. OpenAI says Apple initially claimed that it made contact in February 2026 and received no response. OpenAI’s version is that Apple’s outside counsel confused two people with Asian last names and emailed the wrong recipient.
The disagreement also covers an alleged conversation with OpenAI’s general counsel. Apple’s outside lawyer reportedly sent an email referring to a phone call, but OpenAI says that conversation never took place. In an email exchange presented by OpenAI, the lawyer explained that a message intended for a former Apple employee had accidentally been sent to OpenAI General Counsel Che Chang.
OpenAI argues that this mix-up matters because the specific allegations behind the lawsuit were not raised during the exchange. It says Apple’s counsel instead discussed resolving unspecified issues and did not follow up for another five months before Apple filed suit.
That does not resolve the underlying trade-secret allegations. It does, however, challenge the idea that OpenAI ignored a clear warning and forced Apple to escalate immediately. The communications, as characterized by OpenAI, suggest that the two sides may have understood the initial contact very differently.
The argument over Chang Liu’s file access
Another part of the dispute involves Chang Liu, a former Apple employee whose last day at the company was January 22, 2026, according to OpenAI. Apple’s allegations, as described by OpenAI, concern Liu’s access to confidential information after his departure.
OpenAI offers a sharply different interpretation. It says Apple employees contacted Liu after he left and asked him to help locate files and information they needed for their work. OpenAI presented redacted messages that it says document those requests, although the full context and Apple’s interpretation of the exchanges remain contested.
The distinction is important. Accessing company files to obtain information for a new employer would present a very different situation from responding to former colleagues who are trying to find material for their own work. OpenAI says Liu’s continued access was residual access left in place by Apple rather than something he sought or intended to exploit.
OpenAI goes further by describing lingering access as a recurring Apple offboarding problem. That broader assertion has not been independently verified, but it highlights a practical security issue raised by the dispute: companies are responsible for promptly disabling accounts and removing permissions when employees leave. When that process fails, former workers may retain access they neither requested nor realized they still had.
The existence of access alone does not establish why it was used or whether confidential information moved elsewhere. Those questions depend on the employees’ actions, the contents of the files and evidence about what happened after departure.
OpenAI rejects the allegations involving Tang Tan
OpenAI also disputes allegations concerning Tang Tan, another former Apple employee. It says Apple accused Tan of seeking or using trade secrets, a characterization OpenAI rejects.
The company says Tan repeatedly instructed his team not to obtain or use confidential information belonging to other businesses. OpenAI also describes him as a highly regarded former Apple leader who spent more than 24 years at the company. These are OpenAI’s characterizations of Tan’s conduct and reputation, rather than independently established conclusions about the allegations.
OpenAI’s broader defense is straightforward: it says it does not have Apple’s trade secrets, does not want them and has policies against using another company’s confidential information. It also says it offered to cooperate with Apple after taking the allegations seriously.
The injunction fight is about more than possession
Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction, according to OpenAI’s description of the case. OpenAI calls that request unnecessary and says it is based on inaccurate information.
A preliminary injunction could impose restrictions before the larger dispute is resolved, making the competing accounts of employee conduct and company communications especially significant. OpenAI is trying to show that Apple’s narrative leaves out facts that would undermine the need for immediate court intervention.
But the response remains the position of one party in an active legal conflict. OpenAI’s emails and messages may complicate Apple’s account, but they do not independently decide whether protected information was accessed, retained or used improperly. Apple’s evidence and explanation will be necessary to assess the full dispute.
For the moment, OpenAI has reframed the case as a fight over process as much as trade secrets. Its argument is that Apple failed to manage access cleanly, communicated imprecisely and then treated the resulting confusion as evidence of wrongdoing. Whether that interpretation holds will depend on the complete record, not the forcefulness of either company’s public claims.