Apple Further Refutes Bloomberg ‘Malicious Chips’ Story, Says There’s No Gag Order

This morning, a bombshell Bloomberg Businessweek story made some bombshell claims: Chinese government spies had inserted spy chips into servers used by Apple, performed at the supply chain level.

Apple and Amazon were outed in the story as being victims to Chinese espionage. Both companies immediately refuted Businessweek’s claims, and in doing so, turned the Internet and social media ablaze about who was actually telling the truth.

Now, Apple has issued a press release offering further information on why “there is no truth to these claims.”

Apple first shares its entire statement provided to Bloomberg before the latter’s story was published. Then, Apple shares the additional details below, noting it was unaware of any FBI investigation into the matter and also saying it was “not under any kind of gag order or other confidentiality obligations”:

The published Businessweek story also claims that Apple “reported the incident to the FBI but kept details about what it had detected tightly held, even internally.” In November 2017, after we had first been presented with this allegation, we provided the following information to Bloomberg as part of a lengthy and detailed, on-the-record response. It first addresses their reporters’ unsubstantiated claims about a supposed internal investigation:

Despite numerous discussions across multiple teams and organizations, no one at Apple has ever heard of this investigation. Businessweek has refused to provide us with any information to track down the supposed proceedings or findings. Nor have they demonstrated any understanding of the standard procedures which were supposedly circumvented.

No one from Apple ever reached out to the FBI about anything like this, and we have never heard from the FBI about an investigation of this kind — much less tried to restrict it.

In an appearance this morning on Bloomberg Television, reporter Jordan Robertson made further claims about the supposed discovery of malicious chips, saying, “In Apple’s case, our understanding is it was a random spot check of some problematic servers that led to this detection.”

In an appearance this morning on Bloomberg Television, reporter Jordan Robertson made further claims about the supposed discovery of malicious chips, saying, “In Apple’s case, our understanding is it was a random spot check of some problematic servers that led to this detection.”

As we have previously informed Bloomberg, this is completely untrue. Apple has never found malicious chips in our servers.

Finally, in response to questions we have received from other news organizations since Businessweek published its story, we are not under any kind of gag order or other confidentiality obligations.

Apple remains adamant the Businessweek story is incorrect. Who do you believe?

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