OpenAI has rejected Apple’s allegations that it stole the iPhone maker’s trade secrets,, arguing that Apple has failed to identify confidential information that was misappropriated by former employees who joined the ChatGPT developer.
In a filing late Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, OpenAI described Apple’s lawsuit as the product of the company’s own internal procedures and accused it of trying to discourage employees from joining a growing competitor.
“This dispute is a mess of Apple’s own making, and it is trying to blame everyone else,” OpenAI said in the filing.
Apple sued OpenAI and former Apple employees Tang Tan and Chang Liu in July, alleging that they misappropriated trade secrets involving hardware design, manufacturing and supply-chain operations as OpenAI expands into consumer devices.
The case has opened a new front in the rivalry between the two technology companies, whose relationship has deteriorated sharply since they announced a partnership two years ago. Apple had integrated ChatGPT into parts of its ecosystem as it sought to strengthen its artificial intelligence capabilities, while OpenAI has increasingly moved toward developing its own consumer hardware.
OpenAI said Apple is now attempting to use litigation to slow that expansion and discourage its employees from leaving for a potential competitor. The companies have disclosed in court filings that OpenAI has hired roughly 400 former Apple employees for its hardware initiative.
At the center of the dispute is whether former Apple employees improperly retained or used confidential information after joining OpenAI.
Apple has alleged that Tan and Liu accessed internal company files after leaving Apple. The company has also presented new evidence concerning Liu, alleging that he accessed a power-converter circuit schematic while working at OpenAI and used proprietary Apple information to train an AI agent in March 2026.
Apple said the evidence emerged from a MacBook that OpenAI provided to the company on August 21 as part of the litigation. Apple is seeking to accelerate discovery, which would allow the parties to obtain and examine additional documents and other evidence.
OpenAI, however, disputes Apple’s characterization of the conduct.
The company said California law permits employees to move between competing companies and argued that Apple’s own procedures made it difficult for departing workers to separate personal information from company documents clearly.
According to OpenAI, Apple encourages employees to use personal iCloud accounts to access work documents and perform their duties. It also argued that Apple’s practice of immediately escorting departing employees from its premises can leave little time for them to return devices, transfer files, or complete the handover of responsibilities.
Liu said in the filing that any access to Apple documents after his departure was intended to help former colleagues locate files or answer questions relating to Apple’s work. He said Apple employees continued contacting him for assistance after he left.
Tan, who worked at Apple for 24 years, said he returned Apple prototypes before departing and retained only materials that were not confidential, including an employee departure checklist.
OpenAI said Apple’s objections to employee departures do not establish that trade secrets were stolen.
“Employees can leave a company like Apple that has struggled to adopt AI and move to an exciting startup that builds innovative products,” OpenAI wrote. “Apple may not like those choices. But it cannot claim those choices are unlawful.”
The dispute has drawn significant attention because OpenAI’s hardware ambitions could eventually place it in more direct competition with Apple. OpenAI has been assembling a substantial hardware team and pursuing consumer devices designed around its AI systems, potentially challenging Apple’s position at the intersection of hardware, software and consumer technology.
The hiring of hundreds of Apple employees has also given the dispute a broader competitive dimension. OpenAI recruiting engineers and executives with experience in Apple’s highly integrated hardware operation can accelerate its effort to build devices. For Apple, the departure of personnel with knowledge of its hardware development processes raises concerns over the protection of proprietary information.
Apple has sought to frame the issue as more than ordinary employee mobility. Its latest allegations focus on whether confidential technical information was accessed or used after an employee moved to OpenAI.
OpenAI, meanwhile, has sought to distinguish lawful recruitment from unlawful use of trade secrets and has argued that Apple’s internal document-management practices complicate its claims.
The court will ultimately have to determine whether Apple can substantiate its allegations and establish that protected information was improperly acquired, retained or used. OpenAI has separately asked the court to dismiss Apple’s lawsuit, arguing that the products it is developing are “entirely new.”
