Apple Sues OpenAI

Do They Have a Case?

AI Humor

Rate Limit Resets

Peter Gostev wrote:

I included the actual screenshot because you need to see what he was resharing for the joke to land.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Noah Cat wrote:

Never leaving this app.

Apple Sues OpenAI

The News Breaks

Mark Gurman wrote:

BREAKING: Apple is suing OpenAI, accusing it and its hardware chief of a coordinating trade secret theft campaign to help build its upcoming suite of AI devices.

Pundits React

Joanna Stern wrote:

Oh please don’t settle. Discovery and court filings gonna be such great reading. 🍿

She has the best take.

Interesting Analysis

Ricky Ho wrote:

Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI is more than a dispute over trade secrets. It signals that the AI race is entering a new phase where hardware, not just models, has become the next strategic battleground.

For the past three years, competition centered on building better foundation models. Today, every major AI company is trying to control the entire technology stack, from chips and data centers to operating systems and, increasingly, consumer devices. That naturally increases the value of engineering talent and proprietary product knowledge.

Apple’s allegations are extraordinary. The company claims OpenAI systematically recruited Apple employees, encouraged them to retain confidential information, and used that knowledge to accelerate its own hardware ambitions following the acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup. If proven, the case could have significant legal and financial consequences. If not, it still highlights how intensely competitive the AI hardware race has become.

The broader issue is talent. OpenAI has reportedly hired more than 400 former Apple employees. That reflects an increasingly common reality across AI: engineers are becoming as strategically valuable as intellectual property itself. The industry is experiencing a talent war reminiscent of Silicon Valley during the internet boom, except the stakes are considerably larger because AI is increasingly viewed as the next computing platform.

The timing is also notable. Apple is attempting to defend its ecosystem just as OpenAI, Meta, Google, and others move beyond software into AI-native hardware. Smart glasses, wearable AI assistants, camera-equipped earbuds, and dedicated AI devices are no longer speculative concepts. They are becoming the next competitive frontier as companies prepare for a post-smartphone world.

For investors, this lawsuit reinforces an important theme. The AI race is evolving from model competition into ecosystem competition. Winning will increasingly depend not only on having the best models, but also on controlling hardware, distribution, operating systems, developer ecosystems, and proprietary user data. That naturally raises the strategic value of trade secrets and engineering talent.

Whether Apple ultimately wins this case is almost secondary. The bigger takeaway is that AI competition has become sufficiently valuable that companies are now willing to litigate aggressively over talent, product roadmaps, and hardware development. As hundreds of billions of dollars continue flowing into AI infrastructure and devices, these legal battles may become just as common as the patent wars that defined the smartphone era.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Max Weinbach posted:

Nik wrote:

🚨OPENAI ALLEGEDLY STOLE APPLE’S ENTIRE PLAYBOOK

“Hundreds of billions of dollars, decades of work”

Hardware Engineering

- circuit designs, component architecture, power management
- unreleased products guarded by internal codenames
- AI/ML integration for hardware
- EMI engineering + testing methods

Manufacturing Secrets

- proprietary processes + custom machinery
- equipment Apple builds and installs IN supplier factories
- proprietary metal alloys + finishing techniques
- DFM (Design for Manufacturability) expertise

Component Technologies

- power chips, battery systems, displays, acoustics, touch
- identities of specialized sub-suppliers
- exact specs Apple demands from components

Testing Data

- failure analyses, lifecycle simulations
- “negative know-how” — everything Apple tried that DIDN’T work

Supply Chain

- supplier contracts, allocation strategies
- global logistics coordination
- systems-level integration

The FULL legal complaint is accessible here.

Bad Blood?

Mark Gurman wrote:

Notably, Tan and incoming Apple CEO John Ternus have had a rocky relationship for years. The vast majority of the 400 people poached by OpenAI came from Ternus’s division, while Tan wanted the head of hardware engineering role over him five years ago.

Generally Accessible AI

sphinx wrote:

this man is being vilified but remember that without him we probably wouldn’t have any consumer AI

recap:

1>Google had internal AI for yrs but refused to release it because they’re our overlords who treated us like the idiots that we are. they were happy to throw scraps at us once in a while and then cancel those projects on a whim. they didn’t give two shits until OpenAI literally showed up and forced their hand.

2> meanwhile we couldn’t even get basic spellcheck right. spellcheck doesn't work in Chrome EVEN NOW. Grammarly built an entire business extorting fees just to make that one basic feature usable.

3> look at how Ilya is selling closed source AI to hedge funds. that was the best-case scenario for AI. it was destined for quants and algo trading because that’s where the serious money is (eg even Deepseek came out of a hedge fund)

4> then Sam casually dropped Chatgpt in 2022 and everything changed overnight. suddenly there was AI you could simply log into, ask questions and chat with. it was fucking magical.

5> OpenAI was so far ahead that nobody really came close until Anthropic in 2025/26 and even Dario came from openai (so more points for Sam tbh)

granted there’s a whole lot of profit/non-profit drama going on but the fact remains: we have consumer AI because Sam Altman decided to release it and then built an entire business around it.

NVIDIA is worth multiple trillions because of that. otherwise that leather jacket hero larp uncle would still be selling gpus to crypto miners and gamers like he always did.

Elon gave us a true EV company. Sam gave us AI. both are feuding and that’s their business but don’t lose perspective of the facts.

we have AI because of Sam.

He does have a point. Whether it was Sam Altman specifically I can’t say, but the general public has access to AI because of OpenAI. The other frontier labs have a history of withholding models until competition forces their hand.

HyperCard Restored!!!

I found this via Daring Fireball. If you are around the same age as me, you probably have fond memories of HyperCard. Now, you can run it on modern Mac hardware thanks to developer Jeff Halter.

You can download it here: https://morphing.cloud/hypercard/

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