Apple integrated ChatGPT into iOS in 2024. Now they're suing OpenAI for trade secret theft. The lawsuit claims the scheme operated "at every level."
Picture the meeting. Two companies shake hands. Sign contracts. Issue joint press releases about innovation and the future. Engineers swap code. Lawyers swap documents. Marketing teams coordinate launch events. Then one company files a lawsuit claiming the other stole everything the entire time.
At every level. Not some levels. Every level. Which means either OpenAI ran the most brazen corporate espionage operation in tech history while openly partnering with its victim, or Apple's due diligence team spent 2024 eating paste.
Retail traders saw the partnership announcement and bought both stocks because AI plus iPhone equals money printer. They did not consider that maybe the two companies would immediately accuse each other of crimes. Why would they? That would require reading past the headline.
The lawsuit doesn't specify which trade secrets got stolen. Could be anything. Siri's cutting-edge ability to misunderstand simple questions. Apple's proprietary method of charging $799 for last year's processor. The secret formula for making laptops that break when you look at them wrong.
OpenAI presumably needed these secrets because their own technology wasn't enough. They built a chatbot that can write poetry and pass the bar exam, but they desperately needed Apple's institutional knowledge about removing headphone jacks.
Both companies will spend millions on lawyers. The case will drag on for years. Discovery will produce tens of thousands of emails where engineers complain about meetings. A settlement will emerge with no admission of wrongdoing. And some guy in Nebraska will still be holding shares he bought at the top because his podcast told him partnerships mean guaranteed returns.
Apple picked a great partner. They lasted almost two full years before the lawsuits started.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
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