OpenAI, in a blog post on Monday entitled “Apple is getting this wrong”: 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. I’ve neglected to write about this surprisingly venomous lawsuit on JAG’s Workshop. In case you missed it, Apple sued OpenAI for allegedly poaching employees and stealing trade secrets. Among the many allegations is that one former Apple employee, Chang Liu, “[failed] to return an Apple-issued work laptop” (which Apple categorizes as having been “stolen”) and then accessed confidential Apple data from it. Apple’s outside counsel also mixed up two OpenAI employees in an email exchange. Apple’s language in the filing is astonishingly vitriolic (definitely “oddly personal”). With that context, back to OpenAI’s post: 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. But they again hide the fact that they never raised the specific allegations in this lawsuit at that time, and that they in fact told us that they were “resolving any issues”. We then heard nothing for five months until they sued. In their latest filing, Apple tries hard to spin this sequence of events, but you can just read the emails for yourself here⁠. Apple accuses Chang Liu of accessing Apple 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 (you can read the messages here⁠). Apple now tries to shift the blame to “residual access”, but they also don’t disclose that this is a common issue with Apple which is caused by them failing to properly manage system access when people leave. What that means in practice is that former employees who are trying to do the right thing when they leave still have access to Apple files—despite not wanting them or even being aware of them. The author is listed simply as “OpenAI,” but I’d bet a hotel-priced beverage that it was written by Sam Altman. It has a faint whiff of him feeling butt-hurt by what he undoubtedly sees as personally offensive accusations. The post includes a (recreation of a) message thread between Liu and his (former) Apple colleagues, along with an email thread between Apple’s outside counsel and OpenAI’s General Counsel. Say what you will about Apple’s outside counsel emailing the wrong person (and putting aside the merits of the case for a moment), but OpenAI’s lawyers must be either incompetent or malicious to allow the release of this information. Good lawyers know better than to share their evidence publicly. Crucially, the post also ignores most of Apple’s substantive claims. The messages between Liu and his former colleagues do support the contention that they reached out to him with questions about ongoing projects (as is often done when a trusted colleague leaves with short notice). However, it does not at all address the most serious allegations against Liu. For example, Apple alleges that Liu inappropriately accessed a colleague’s work computer after leaving Apple; “downloaded confidential technical presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, and written work product” after realizing he still had access to those files; and that he: […] coached his former Apple colleague (whom he was recruiting to join OpenAI) on ways to “avoid trouble with the security team” when copying confidential Apple files. Knowing that OpenAI interviews would involve discussing Apple technology, Mr. Liu advised her on which confidential Apple material about unannounced Apple products she should study before her interview. To hide his illegal activity, Mr. Liu directed her to communicate with him privately over a separate messaging app. None of that is addressed in OpenAI’s blogged defense. It instead focuses on two very specific conversations, as if to suggest the whole is represented by the parts, but in doing so, it simply highlights OpenAI’s own apparent willingness to omit inconvenient details. Fortune calls the post a “brutal critique” of the Apple lawsuit, but that seriously overstates the piece. If the evidence were as strong as OpenAI—Altman—would like us to believe, it would have been better to keep their traps shut until they walked into court, dropped their load, and forced Apple to slink away in defeat. Instead we get a transparent PR stunt meant to paint Apple as lying, disingenuous, or at best, clueless. Its aim is to embarrass Apple and sway the court of public opinion. I don’t expect it to work.