Apple’s lawyer mixed up Asian OpenAI employees before lawsuit

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Abilene, Texas, in September. Kyle Grillot / Bloomberg / Getty Images

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July 14, 2026, 5:18 PM EDT<br>By David Ingram

Apple alleged in a lawsuit last week that OpenAI “never responded” to its concerns this year about what Apple believed was trade secret theft. But emails reviewed by NBC News show that’s not the full story: OpenAI did respond in February to Apple’s initial outreach. The communications became bogged down and, according to OpenAI, abruptly stopped after an outside attorney representing Apple mixed up the names and email addresses of two OpenAI employees who had the last names Wang and Chang.

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