OpenAI has formally responded to Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit, denying wrongdoing and calling the allegations unsupported. The statement, issued Tuesday, comes days after Apple filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California accusing OpenAI and its chief hardware officer of a coordinated campaign to steal confidential Apple hardware information.
What OpenAI Said
“While we take these allegations seriously, we’re not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit,” OpenAI said in its statement, adding that it remains committed to “fair competition” and to people’s “freedom to work wherever they choose.” The company reiterated a line it has used before: it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and says it is focused on building its own technology, not appropriating anyone else’s.
The response, first reported by TechCrunch, is the company’s first substantive public reply since Apple’s filing landed on July 10 — Bloomberg, CNBC, and Fortune all covered the original complaint the same day it hit the docket, and the four-day gap before OpenAI spoke publicly is itself a fairly standard delay for a company weighing how much to say before its lawyers have filed anything formal.
The statement did not address any specific allegation in Apple’s complaint point by point, and OpenAI has not yet filed a formal legal response — such as a motion to dismiss — in court. TechCrunch, which first reported the statement, said OpenAI did not provide additional comment when asked for further detail beyond the prepared line.
That gap is notable on its own. Apple’s complaint runs through specific, checkable claims — codenames, hiring records, physical hardware allegedly brought into interviews — and a general denial doesn’t engage with any of them directly. That’s not unusual at this stage of litigation (companies routinely decline to litigate specifics in the press before a formal answer is due in court), but it means the public record right now is still one detailed accusation against one general denial, not a point-by-point dispute.
What Apple Is Alleging
Apple’s suit centers on Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, who spent roughly 24 years at Apple and rose to vice president over iPhone and Apple Watch product design before leaving for Jony Ive’s io Products in 2024 (io was later absorbed into OpenAI’s hardware efforts). Apple accuses Tan of using confidential Apple codenames during OpenAI’s recruiting process, encouraging job candidates to share internal Apple information during interviews, and in some cases directing interviewees to bring physical Apple hardware components with them. We covered the original filing and its claim involving roughly 400 former Apple employees when Apple first sued on July 10.
Tan isn’t a minor figure in this story — he’s one of the more senior design executives to leave Apple for a rival AI hardware effort, and Apple’s framing treats his departure and subsequent hiring practices at OpenAI as the throughline connecting the rest of the alleged scheme. Apple’s complaint reportedly describes the pattern as a “scheme at every level,” language strong enough that legal observers have flagged this as one of the more aggressive trade-secret suits filed by a major tech company against an AI rival to date.
Why the Timing Matters
The dispute is playing out while OpenAI is reportedly moving toward a confidential IPO process, a detail that raises the stakes of any unresolved litigation hanging over the company. Trade secret suits of this scale rarely settle quickly, and a denial without a formal court filing is typically an early, procedural step rather than a sign the dispute is close to resolved. We go deeper on how IPO timing pressure is shaping AI company decisions right now if you want the broader context on why a lawsuit like this lands differently for a company approaching a public listing.
What’s Next
Neither side has indicated a court date. Apple’s complaint will need to survive any motion to dismiss OpenAI eventually files, and discovery in a case this document-heavy — involving codenames, hardware components, and hiring records — typically takes months before any substantive ruling. For now, this remains a war of public statements: Apple alleging a “scheme at every level,” OpenAI calling the allegations unsupported, and no independent verification yet of either side’s full account.
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