11:22 AM PDT · July 13, 2026
Apple’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI is packed with a number of extraordinary allegations that paint a picture of a coordinated effort to extract confidential information from current and former Apple employees. But what’s perhaps most striking is how casually the alleged misconduct is described, including one message that reads, “LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.”
The 41-page complaint, which was filed on Friday, is filled with unusually detailed allegations, like this and others. Here are some that stood out the most to us.
“Normalized and exemplified by leadership.” With this description of OpenAI, Apple is making it clear its lawsuit isn’t just focused on rogue employees, but that misconduct like this is part of OpenAI’s culture and is led from the top.
“Rotten to its core.” Leave it to Apple to work a rotten fruit analogy into its criticism of OpenAI’s behavior in this case. The AI model maker is rumored to be working on a hardware device to challenge the iPhone, potentially a smartphone of its own. But Apple wants to stress that what OpenAI is developing was allegedly built with Apple’s trade secrets. “OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” the complaint states.
