OpenAI publishes its rebuttal to Apple's trade secrets lawsuit, with receipts

Apple sued OpenAI over trade secrets, and OpenAI has now published its side with receipts.

In a blog post titled “Apple is getting this wrong,” OpenAI says Apple’s outside lawyers emailed the wrong person back in February after mixing up two last names, and only admitted it once OpenAI pointed it out. Apple had also claimed a discussion with OpenAI’s General Counsel that, OpenAI says, never happened.

Five months of silence, then a lawsuit

Then, according to OpenAI, nothing: five months of silence. Apple filed suit on July 10, 2026, alleging former employees systematically took hardware trade secrets with them.

The sequence is the core of OpenAI’s public argument. A company that believed its secrets were being systematically stolen, the post implies, would not misaddress its first email, invent a meeting, and then wait five months before going to court.

The uncomfortable counterargument

OpenAI’s other point cuts at Apple’s own processes: it says any leftover access to Apple files came from Apple not cutting off system access when people leave.

If that holds, it reframes part of the case from theft to negligence, and puts Apple in the position of litigating over doors it left unlocked. Apple, presumably, will tell that story very differently in its filings.

What this is and is not

None of this is settled. It is one company’s public rebuttal to another company’s lawsuit, and courts, not blog posts, decide trade secret cases. Public rebuttals are written for narrative advantage, and both companies now have strong incentives to frame every detail favorably.

What the post does establish is that OpenAI intends to fight this loudly rather than quietly. The next filing will show whether Apple’s evidence looks stronger in court than OpenAI’s telling makes it sound.