OpenAI Says Apple’s Trade Secret Lawsuit Lacks Any Merit

OpenAI said Tuesday it has no evidence Apple’s trade secret lawsuit has merit, four days after Apple accused its hardware chief of stealing iPhone design secrets. The statement was OpenAI’s most direct response yet to a lawsuit Apple filed last Friday in federal court in California. Apple says the AI lab coached former employees to loot its confidential hardware plans.

But the damage is already spreading regardless of how a court eventually rules. Employees weighing a jump to OpenAI and suppliers wary of angering Apple are already responding as if the claims are true, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports.

OpenAI Finally Answers Apple’s Trade Secrets Claim

OpenAI’s denial arrived Tuesday when Bloomberg reporter Ed Ludlow posted OpenAI’s full statement on X.

While we take these allegations seriously, we’re not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit. We believe in fair competition and allowing people the freedom to work wherever they choose, and we’re focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.

OpenAI issued that statement Tuesday, TechCrunch reported, marking the first time the company addressed the substance of Apple’s case instead of waving it off.

Four days earlier, when Apple filed suit, OpenAI’s Director of Strategic Communications, Drew Pusateri, wrote on X that the company has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and remains “focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

9to5Mac reported OpenAI is expected to file a full legal response to Apple’s specific allegations in the coming days. That filing will be the first real test of how OpenAI plans to fight the case in court rather than in press statements.

Two Defectors and a 41-Page Complaint

Apple filed its complaint last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The 41-page filing accuses OpenAI, its hardware unit io Products, and two former Apple employees of trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” the complaint states. “Apple lacks visibility into what’s been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership.”

The filing adds that OpenAI’s hardware business now rests on “the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.”

An Apple spokesperson said the company’s teams are “constantly developing breakthrough technologies to create the best products and services in the world, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take very seriously.”

Apple says it first raised concerns in a letter to OpenAI back in February and never got a response. It waited five more months before going to court.

The complaint centers on two people who left Apple for OpenAI, plus the design studio that built OpenAI’s hardware ambitions.

Apple is asking the court for a jury trial, an injunction blocking OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, the return of any confidential materials, and damages.

How Many Ex-Apple Staffers Now Work at OpenAI?

Apple’s complaint puts the number at more than 400 former Apple employees now working at OpenAI. That volume, Apple argues, is exactly why a system for extracting information on the way out the door became necessary.

The complaint describes a specific playbook it says OpenAI used to keep that pipeline flowing without tripping Apple’s internal alarms.

• Coaching new hires on avoiding the “dreaded walkout,” Apple’s practice of removing departing staff immediately instead of after a standard two-week notice period
• Telling job candidates still employed at Apple to bring actual hardware components to interviews for what the complaint calls “show and tell” sessions
• Advising departing employees not to sign paperwork at Apple exit interviews, and to alert OpenAI “asap” if they were asked to
• Approaching an Apple supplier using internal terminology the complaint says “only Apple insiders would know to ask”

One exchange in the complaint is blunter than the legal language around it. Chang Liu allegedly wrote to an Apple employee, Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, “LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.” Peng, who later left Apple for OpenAI herself, replied, “I’m ready.”

Apple says Liu used that access, gained through an authentication bug on Peng’s Apple-issued computer, to pull confidential files.

A Screen-Free Companion Built With Apple’s Old Guard

Apple’s suit lands squarely on the hardware program OpenAI has built since it bought io Products, the design studio Jony Ive co-founded with several former Apple executives, for a reported $6.5 billion last year.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that OpenAI is developing a mobile, screen-free smart speaker, described by people familiar with the plans as a “humanlike AI companion” meant to live inside a home. The device has no screen, includes moving mechanical parts, and was built with help from former Apple engineers who worked on the iPhone and Mac.

Ive himself is not named as a defendant. Apple’s complaint refers to io only as “a venture co-founded by Mr. Tan and other former Apple leaders,” stopping short of naming the designer directly even though he leads OpenAI’s hardware work.

That restraint may not survive discovery. Ive was deposed in 2012 during Apple’s patent fight with Samsung, answering questions about the company’s design process and early iPhone and iPad prototypes.

If OpenAI’s lawyers decide his account of how io’s hardware came together helps their defense, he could end up on the stand this time, across the table from the company that trained him.

A Winning Streak Meets Harder Evidence

OpenAI enters this fight coming off a run of legal wins. In June, a federal jury rejected Elon Musk’s bid to force OpenAI back into nonprofit status, ruling he had waited too long to sue after helping found the company in 2015. Musk said he would appeal.

Weeks later, a California judge threw out a related suit from Musk’s xAI, which had accused OpenAI of recruiting an xAI engineer to leak details about its Grok chatbot.

Apple isn’t OpenAI’s only fresh legal headache, either. Florida became the first state to sue OpenAI and Altman directly this year, adding another docket the company has to manage at the same time.

Apple’s case leans on specific, documented conduct: a retained laptop, coached exit interviews, and internal messages between employees. That kind of evidence is harder to wave away than a dispute over a company’s founding mission.

Not everyone reads the complaint’s aggressive language the same way.

• Mark Gurman reports the fight is already reshaping OpenAI’s hardware business, independent of anything a court eventually decides.
• M.G. Siegler, who writes the Spyglass newsletter, argues that despite Apple’s sweeping language about a culture of misconduct, the filing “really only” makes a direct case against two or maybe three individuals.
• Max Weinbach, a technology commentator on X, reads the suit as centered mainly on Liu and Tan personally, with OpenAI named to keep its intellectual property out of production, and says he does not expect the case to get super dramatic.

The Fallout Arrives Before Any Verdict

The practical cost is showing up before any judge rules on the merits. Gurman reports Apple employees weighing a move to OpenAI are now thinking twice given the added scrutiny, and that even interviewing there could draw attention from Apple’s security team.

Suppliers wary of jeopardizing bigger relationships with Apple may grow more reluctant to work with OpenAI’s hardware group at all.

None of that requires a verdict. A trial, if the case goes that far, likely would not start until sometime next year at the earliest, Siegler wrote, though hearings over Apple’s requested injunction could come much sooner.

People close to OpenAI’s plans say the company still intends to announce its first hardware product this year and ship it in 2027, though the timeline could shift as it reviews Apple’s claims. A simpler, non-phone device is expected to ship before any wearable or phone-style product follows.

OpenAI is preparing for what is expected to be a historic initial public offering, already shaping up as a compute cash race with Anthropic for capital and chips. Jim Cramer, the CNBC host, called Apple’s suit a “heavyweight” case, and Yahoo Finance reported that Chief Executive Tim Cook personally signed off on the complaint, something Apple almost never files.

Anthropic has reportedly reached a $965 billion valuation, pulling ahead of OpenAI on one closely watched measure just as OpenAI fights on multiple fronts at once.

Discovery in Apple’s case has not started. OpenAI has not yet filed its formal answer to the complaint. Its screen-free companion, whatever shape it eventually takes, still has no release date attached to it.