Apple is one of the greatest companies of all time, and built a reputation for obsessing over the smallest details. This careless, aggressive and oddly personal lawsuit sadly doesn’t live up to that reputation. 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. Apple also claimed they had a discussion with our General Counsel, which they now concede never happened.

OpenAI addresses Apple’s baseless lawsuit, corrects claims about its employees, and shares messages documenting what happened. Apple accuses Chang Liu of accessing confidential information after leaving the company, but only now admits that Apple employees reached out to him and asked for his help to locate this information. Apple also tries to shift the blame to “residual access”, but they don’t disclose that this is a common issue caused by failing to properly manage system access.

Apple also accuses Tang Tan of trying to get and use their trade secrets. Tang has always been clear that we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies. Tang served Apple for more than 24 years and was widely known as one of the most innovative leaders at the company.

We have taken the allegations in the lawsuit seriously and offered to work with Apple to resolve this. Instead, they’re changing their narrative with vague accusations about former employees and a request for a preliminary injunction based on false information. We’re much more interested in building innovative products and technologies that push the frontier.