OpenAI Says Apple’s Real Problem Is Being Bad at AI, Not Stolen Secrets

The legal battle between OpenAI and Apple just got (even more) personal. In response to a bombshell lawsuit accusing the startup’s employees of stealing Apple’s trade secrets, OpenAI called the case “meritless” and requested that it be tossed out by a federal judge. The response also suggested that Apple’s accusations were motivated in part by jealousy of OpenAI’s success. “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,” OpenAI’s legal team wrote in its 28-page response to the lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses two former Apple employees, Chang Liu and Tang Tan, of illegally using their insider knowledge of the company’s trade secrets to help OpenAI—which hired Liu and Tan earlier this year and last summer, respectively—build its fledgling hardware business. OpenAI published a blog post on Tuesday dismissing Apple’s claims, along with excerpts of iMessage conversations between Liu and his former Apple colleagues and email threads between the two companies’ lawyers. The post admonished Apple in a finger-wagging tone, describing i