Litigation disputes turn into nothing

Litigation dispute turned into a waste? OpenAI opposed Apple: Your outside lawyer sent the email to the wrong person. The trade secret lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI ushered in a dramatic reversal on August 4. After Apple submitted a motion for preliminary injunction and accelerated discovery to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, OpenAI directly posted a response titled "Apple Got It Wrong," attaching screenshots of internal emails and iMessage chat records, alleging that Apple's injunction application was based on misleading statements and management loopholes. The dispute began on July 10 this year. Apple sued former senior system electrical engineer Chang Liu and former vice president of product design Tang Tan (currently chief hardware officer of OpenAI), accusing the two of systematically stealing core design drawings, supply chain secrets and manufacturing processes for iPhone, Apple Watch and other hardware when they jumped to OpenAI and its hardware subsidiary io Products. Apple then applied to the court for a preliminary injunction, trying to prevent OpenAI and the former employees involved in the case from accessing and using any Apple confidential information, and forcing the people involved to testify under oath, saying that if an injunction is not issued, they will suffer irreversible major harm. OpenAI’s pushback broke down two of Apple’s core accusations. First, in response to Apple's claim that it "contacted OpenAI but received no response," the truth is that the external lawyer hired by Apple mixed up the last names of two Asian employees and sent the email to the wrong person; only after OpenAI took the initiative to correct this mistake did Apple's law firm admit that it had sent the wrong email. Second, in response to Apple’s accusation that Chang Liu still used his permissions to log in to the intranet to download project documents after leaving his job, the iMessage disclosed by OpenAI showed that after Chang Liu resigned in January 2026, it was Apple employees who took the initiative to come to him and ask him to help find and provide past project documents. What's even more embarrassing is that the permissions remain with Apple itself. OpenAI said that Chang Liu still encountered some files after leaving the company. The root cause was poor management of Apple's internal system - after the employee left, the iCloud sharing permissions were not cleared in time. Instead, it became an excuse to accuse the former employee of "illegal reading" afterwards. OpenAI was merciless in his response: Apple is a great company that is obsessed with details, but this careless, offensive and personal lawsuit is not worthy of this reputation; the company neither has nor wants any trade secrets from Apple. After winning the lawsuit against Musk, the tug-of-war with Apple has become a new focus in Silicon Valley. Essentially, this is a competition between two companies for the right to speak in the next-generation native AI hardware ecosystem——