Apple’s allegation that OpenAI “never responded” to its early trade secrets complaints is messier than the company’s lawsuit suggests, according to emails reviewed by NBC News.
David Ingram of NBC News reported that OpenAI did answer Apple’s February outreach about what Apple believed was trade secret theft. The exchange then stalled after an outside lawyer for Apple confused two OpenAI employees whose surnames were Wang and Chang, sending at least one message to the wrong person.
The lawyer, Gabriel Gross of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, was representing Apple in the matter, NBC News reported. Gross meant to follow up with an OpenAI employee named Wang, a former Apple employee who had moved to OpenAI. Instead, he replied to an email thread with Chang, another OpenAI employee, and mixed together the two interactions.
According to NBC News, Gross recognized the mistake by the next morning, a Tuesday, and sent Chang another message explaining that the prior email had been meant for Wang. Gross said Wang had called him after Apple emailed about retaining Apple information and had offered to cooperate. Gross apologized to Chang for the confusion, NBC News reported.
The mix-up did not land quietly inside OpenAI. NBC News reported that OpenAI’s general counsel was upset enough to ask Apple to take Gross off the matter. Apple refused, according to the report.
OpenAI spokesperson Pusateri told NBC News that Chang understood Gross’s apology to mean the issue involving the mistaken email had been resolved, so Chang did not respond. That point now sits awkwardly beside Apple’s claim in court that OpenAI did not respond to its concerns.
The record described by NBC News narrows the dispute. It does not show that OpenAI answered every allegation Apple raised, or that Apple’s trade secrets claims were resolved in February. It does show that Apple’s blanket description, at least as reported, leaves out a February exchange and an avoidable law-firm-grade own goal: counsel sent a sensitive follow-up to the wrong OpenAI employee because two surnames looked or sounded similar enough to trip him up.
The substance of Apple’s lawsuit remains separate from the email-address blunder. Apple accused OpenAI of failing to respond to concerns about alleged trade secret theft. OpenAI, through NBC News’s account of the emails and Pusateri’s explanation, says there was a response, followed by confusion created by Apple’s outside counsel and then a breakdown after Apple declined to remove him.
That distinction matters in court filings and public spin alike. The emails reported by NBC News do not settle whether any Apple trade secrets were taken. They do, however, give both sides something to argue over before the underlying allegations even get a clean hearing.
This story draws on original reporting from Daring Fireball.