OpenAI told a federal judge that Apple has only itself to blame in the companies' trade-secret fight, denying that former Apple employees stole confidential hardware information and calling the dispute "a mess of Apple's own making," according to a Reuters report on the ChatGPT maker's late-Monday filing in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California.

"This dispute is a mess of Apple's own making, and it is trying to blame everyone else," OpenAI wrote in the filing, Reuters reported. Apple sued OpenAI and former Apple employees Tang Tan and Chang Liu in July, accusing them of misappropriating trade secrets tied to hardware design, manufacturing, and supply-chain operations as OpenAI pushes into consumer devices — including hardware ambitions that have been reported to include a smart speaker.

OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, argues Apple is using the lawsuit to slow a potential competitor and discourage departures. Court filings from both sides say OpenAI has hired roughly 400 Apple employees for its hardware push. California law lets workers move freely between rivals, OpenAI said.

In its response, OpenAI said Apple encourages employees to use personal iCloud accounts for work documents, making it hard for departing staff to separate personal and company information. It also said Apple's practice of quickly escorting leavers off campus does not leave enough time to return devices, transfer files back, or hand off responsibilities. Liu said any post-departure access was to help former Apple colleagues locate files or answer work questions after they kept contacting him. Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran, said he returned prototypes and kept only non-confidential materials, including an employee departure checklist.

"Apple may not like those choices. But it cannot claim those choices are unlawful, and it cannot use its own sloppy procedures to blame others for its own mess," OpenAI wrote, according to Reuters. The filing is OpenAI's formal pushback after Apple's July complaint escalated tensions between partners that had teamed up only two years earlier to put ChatGPT in front of more Apple users — a relationship that soured as AI competition intensified. Whether Apple protected its information well enough to claim trade-secret status is now a core fight in San Jose; employees leaving for a rival is not, by itself, illegal under California's worker-mobility rules.

Sources