Apple Shares ‘Shocking Evidence’ Against Former Employee Accused of Taking Company Data to OpenAI

Apple has filed what it calls “shocking evidence” in its trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI and two former Apple employees. The new filing says an initial review of a MacBook used by ex-Apple engineer Chang Liu shows that confidential Apple hardware files were not only retained after he left the company, but used in work at OpenAI.The document is part of Apple’s push for faster court-ordered discovery. OpenAI responded the same day, calling the fight “a mess of Apple’s own making” and arguing that sloppy internal procedures, not a plot to steal secrets, created the dispute.The case is one of the sharpest legal clashes yet between Apple and the company that now employs hundreds of its former staff while building AI hardware of its own.What Apple Says the Laptop ShowsLiu’s lawyers recently turned over a MacBook he used after leaving Apple. Apple says that machine, combined with related cloud activity, produced four findings:Liu downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic and later used it while employed by OpenAI. Liu and others at OpenAI knew he still had access to Apple material stored in the cloud. After learning Apple was investigating him, Liu messaged OpenAI colleague Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng about restoring devices, which Apple says can overwrite forensic traces. Liu used a tool at OpenAI with the same name as an internal Apple engineering application. Apple says Liu ran a simulation in March using the circuit file in LTspice, a standard electrical-engineering program. Messages cited in the filing describe an AI agent learning to run that software, review results, and adjust parameters. Apple argues that feeding trade-secret material into an AI system can spread the information in ways that are hard to undo.The company told the court that this is not a fishing expedition. In its words, the laptop is only a sliver of what defendants have produced so far, and it already shows secrets being used and evidence at risk.Many details in the filing are redacted. Earlier submissions included messages in which Liu appeared aware that he could still reach Apple files after his departure.The Broader LawsuitApple sued in July in federal court in Northern California. The complaint names OpenAI, hardware-related entities connected to its device plans, Liu, and Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a longtime former Apple design executive.Apple’s core claim is that former employees took confidential hardware information to help OpenAI build consumer devices faster. The company says Liu spent eight years as a senior systems electrical engineer on sensitive programs, left for OpenAI in January 2026, and later obtained internal files he should no longer have been able to see.Apple also accuses Tan of using inside knowledge while recruiting Apple staff, including references to internal project names and requests that candidates discuss confidential methods, suppliers, and designs.Apple says more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. That talent drain is the commercial backdrop. Apple is defending the moat around unreleased products. OpenAI is hiring the people who know how those products are made.OpenAI has said it has no interest in other companies’ trade secrets and is focused on building its own technology.OpenAI’s ResponseOpenAI’s latest filing is blunt. It says employees are allowed to leave a large company that has struggled to adopt AI and join a startup building new products. Dislike of that choice, it argues, does not make the choice illegal.The company says Apple created the conditions for the mess by encouraging personal iCloud use for work documents, leaving access pathways in place, and then blaming others for the result. In OpenAI’s telling, Apple is trying to convert its own security and offboarding failures into a trade-secret case.OpenAI has also said Liu accessed leftover files only to help former colleagues who asked for assistance, not to copy Apple’s hardware roadmap. Apple rejects that explanation and points to the circuit simulation and related messages as proof of use, not courtesy.The two sides are therefore arguing about more than one laptop. They are arguing about whether a wave of poaching plus leftover access equals theft, or whether Apple is using litigation to slow a competitor and punish defectors.Why Hardware Secrets Matter NowThe lawsuit is not about ChatGPT prompts. It is about devices.OpenAI has moved into hardware, including through its relationship with Jony Ive’s io project. Apple believes its advantage in consumer electronics is not only brand and software. It is decades of circuit design, manufacturing test processes, supplier knowledge, and unreleased product architecture.A confidential schematic is valuable because it can save a rival time. Apple says a presentation on main logic boards and testing workflows would be “invaluable” to anyone developing hardware. If those files moved across the street, Apple argues, OpenAI would be taking a shortcut Apple paid billions to build.That is why Apple is asking the court to speed up fact-finding. In trade-secret cases, delay can be the injury. If a model or a device team absorbs the information, the original owner may never get it back in any practical sense.Evidence Versus ProofApple’s language is confident. “Shocking evidence” is a litigation phrase, not a verdict. The court has not ruled that OpenAI stole Apple’s secrets. It has not ruled that Liu’s simulation was unlawful. It has not decided whether device-restore messages were innocent IT hygiene or an attempt to hide a trail.What the new filing does is raise the temperature. Apple is no longer only saying files were downloaded. It is saying they were used on the job at OpenAI and that people inside OpenAI knew about lingering access.OpenAI is no longer only denying a conspiracy. It is attacking Apple’s security culture and suggesting the iPhone maker wants the court to police ordinary employee mobility.Both positions can be partly true. Companies lose talent. Companies also lose files when offboarding is weak. The legal question is whether what happened here crossed from sloppy to unlawful.A Fight About the Future of Device AIThe case sits at the intersection of two industry shifts. Apple is under pressure to catch up in generative AI. OpenAI is under pressure to find a hardware path that is not just another chatbot in a glass slab.That makes every departing Apple engineer more valuable and every internal file more sensitive. It also makes courts a new arena for a competition that used to be fought in keynotes and app stores.If Apple wins broad discovery and later an injunction, OpenAI’s hardware effort could face delays, document holds, and limits on what certain employees may work on. If OpenAI wins dismissal or narrows the case to a few leftover files, Apple will look like a giant trying to freeze the labor market.Investors and engineers are watching for a third outcome: a settlement that lets both companies claim they protected their rights without a public trial full of circuit diagrams.