The inside story of the dispute between Apple and OpenAI: 2 key emails, a 13-minute gap and a name confusion led to a complete breakdown in communication. NBC released an investigative report, revealing the core details of the communication obstruction before the lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI - 2 key emails, a 13-minute gap and a name confusion. In the end,

The inside story of the dispute between Apple and OpenAI: 2 key emails, a 13-minute gap and a name confusion that led to a complete breakdown in communication. NBC released an investigative report, revealing the core details of the communication obstruction before the lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI in the commercial dispute - 2 key emails, a 13-minute gap and a name confusion, which ultimately led to the two parties going to court. Apple sued OpenAI in the U.S. Federal Court for the Northern District of California last week, accusing several of its employees of stealing high-level trade secrets such as unreleased products, components and supplier relationships. The "own goal" occurred 13 minutes after the first email was sent. The incident began on February 23, 2026. Apple's external lawyer Gabriel Gross sent the first email to OpenAI general counsel Che Chang at 17:53 that day, with the subject "OpenAI former Apple employees retain non-public, confidential and proprietary information" and attached a PDF letter and three attachments. However, only 13 minutes later, when Chang had not responded, Gross sent a second email in the same email chain, saying "Thanks for the call" and saying that he would contact Apple after communicating with him, and also sent three additional attachments. But in fact, Gross and Chang did not speak on the phone during those 13 minutes. Gross's second email was originally intended for a former Apple employee named Wang - who later joined OpenAI, not Chang. The reply, which was supposed to be sent to Wang, was mistakenly sent to Chang, causing a critical communication misunderstanding. OpenAI thought the misunderstanding had been clarified, but Apple said it "never responded." About 2 hours later, Chang forwarded the email chain to Apple's internal lawyer, asking to confirm whether Gross represented Apple, and said it was not appropriate to continue communicating with him. The next morning, Gross sent a third email apologizing, saying that he mistakenly sent the reply to Wang to Chang, and explained that Wang had proactively called the company the day before to express his willingness to cooperate in solving the problem. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said that Chang believed that the misunderstanding had been clarified and therefore did not reply. However, Apple claimed in the lawsuit that OpenAI "never responded" and that the two parties had fundamental differences in their understanding of the status of communication until Apple formally filed the lawsuit last Friday. via AI News (author: AI Base)