By Rajwa Quasim
OpenAI has asked a U.S. federal judge to dismiss Apple’s lawsuit accusing the company and two former Apple employees of stealing trade secrets. Apple alleges that OpenAI used the confidential information to develop hardware, while OpenAI argues it is building something “entirely new” and has “no use, need or desire” for Apple’s trade secrets.
The motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple filed the lawsuit against OpenAI in July. They alleged that OpenAI orchestrated an effort to obtain confidential information through former employees, recruiting practices and supplier relationships. The former Apple executives joined OpenAI later.
“Apple’s complaint fails to sufficiently describe the information for which it claims trade secret protection; its generalized product development categories are not sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss,” OpenAI said in the filing.
READ: Apple to pay $250 million after misleading iPhone buyers on AI (May 6, 2026)
OpenAI’s 31-page motion digs at Apple, said that lawsuit is an attempt to compensate for iPhone makers’ struggle in retaining talent and keeping the pace in AI. According to Axios, the word similar to “fail” appeared nearly 50 times in the motion.
“Apple should not be permitted to use a baseless and pretextual lawsuit to make up for its shortcomings in the market for talent and retaining its employees, and its failures to integrate AI into its products,” the motion says.
OpenAI argues in court filing that Apple reviewed personal messages left on company devices. It further created confusion by allowing employees to use their personal iCloud accounts for work. This made the company and personal data mix together. It said, “Apple cannot transform the foreseeable consequences of its own systems and policies into evidence of theft by former employees who were … not aware of their latent access.”
Apple asked the court on Monday to issue a preliminary injunction to stop OpenAI from using the alleged secrets while the lawsuit is being resolved and judgement is given. Later, OpenAI released a statement in which they described their stance.
“Apple had claimed that they contacted OpenAI in February and that we didn’t respond. They now admit that their outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names—only after we brought this to their attention.
READ: Why Apple is fighting an antitrust investigation in India’s courts (January 22, 2026)
Apple also claimed they had a discussion with our General Counsel, which they now concede never happened. But they again hide the fact that they never raised the specific allegations in this lawsuit at that time, and that they in fact told us that they were ‘resolving any issues.’ We then heard nothing for five months until they sued,” OpenAI stated.
The public statement also includes iMessage logs, which OpenAI says was an Apple employee that contacted the departed employee Chang Liu, initiating contact to ask for help locating files after Liu’s last day at Apple. OpenAI said it was the opposite of Apple’s theft claim. OpenAI added the other employee Tang Tan has always been explicit about not using confidential information from other companies.
As per Axios, around 400 former Apple employees joined OpenAI. Apple and OpenAI already have a partnership that lets Siri provide ChatGPT access in Apple, and iPhone users can also sign up for ChatGPT directly through the iOS settings menu.