On August 4, Apple asked a U.S. judge for a preliminary injunction to stop OpenAI and two former employees—Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan—from using what it claims are its trade secrets. The motion seeks to halt OpenAI's hardware work and demands depositions of the two ex-employees, OpenAI's device unit io Products, and forensic images of their devices. Apple also named 11 more former employees who may have seen or participated in the alleged theft, with one reportedly screenshotting files before an OpenAI interview.
What Apple alleges
Apple claims Liu used an authentication bug to download dozens of confidential hardware files and that Tan forwarded supplier information to his personal email and coached candidates to bring 'actual parts' from Apple to interviews for 'show and tell' sessions. The lawsuit says more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. Apple filed the original suit on July 10 and sent a letter to OpenAI in February, which went unanswered.
OpenAI's defense
OpenAI called the request "careless, aggressive, and oddly personal," saying it does not have or want any Apple secrets. The company published internal messages showing Apple employees repeatedly asking Liu for help locating files after his January 22 departure, including one Apple staffer calling the exchange "highly irregular." A hearing is set for October 1. Beneath this fight is a race to build a device for the AI era—OpenAI acquired Jony Ive's io Products for $6.5 billion in 2025, and an injunction would stall that work.