Apple raises evidence-destruction claims against OpenAI

Apple has accused OpenAI of destroying evidence in their trade-secret dispute, citing a forensic review of a former Apple engineer’s company-issued MacBook as it presses a federal court to accelerate evidence gathering.

The allegation was set out in a filing on Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, where Apple is suing OpenAI, io Products and former employees Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan over alleged misappropriation of confidential hardware information. OpenAI denies wrongdoing and is seeking dismissal of the case.

Apple said an initial examination of Liu’s MacBook showed that he downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic after leaving the company and used it in work at OpenAI. The filing further alleges that Liu sent instructions to an OpenAI colleague for destroying evidence and that the colleague indicated she would comply.

Those assertions remain allegations that have not been adjudicated. OpenAI, in its own filing on Monday, disputed Apple’s broader case and said the conflict was “a mess of Apple’s own making”, arguing that Apple had failed to show that protectable trade secrets were taken or improperly used.

Apple’s brief supports its request for expedited discovery, which would allow the company to obtain documents and testimony earlier than under the normal pretrial schedule. It said the laptop had been provided only after weeks of delay and argued that its contents demonstrated a need for faster access to evidence while its request for a preliminary injunction is pending.

According to Apple, Liu and others at OpenAI knew he retained access to Apple material stored through third-party cloud services after his employment ended in January. Apple alleges that the access resulted from an authentication flaw and that Liu continued reaching files after joining OpenAI.

OpenAI has offered a different account. It says Liu accessed Apple files after his departure to assist former colleagues who had asked him for help, and has blamed Apple’s employee offboarding and data-management practices for leaving former workers with residual access. OpenAI has said it neither possesses nor wants Apple trade secrets.

The dispute has also focused on whether information allegedly retained or accessed by Liu had any connection to OpenAI’s hardware programme. Apple said the forensic review showed that Liu used a proprietary circuit schematic while working at OpenAI and used a tool bearing the same name as an internal Apple engineering application. OpenAI has maintained that documents Liu accessed were irrelevant to his work for the artificial-intelligence company.

Apple filed the lawsuit on July 10, naming Liu, Tan, OpenAI entities and io Products as defendants. The complaint alleges trade-secret misappropriation under federal law and breach of contract by the two former employees. Apple is seeking damages and orders preventing use or disclosure of its confidential information and requiring destruction of any proprietary material held by the defendants.

Tan, a long-serving former Apple executive who worked on hardware including the iPhone and Apple Watch, later became a senior figure in OpenAI’s consumer-device effort. Liu worked at Apple as a senior systems electrical engineer before moving to OpenAI. Apple says more than 400 former employees now work at the ChatGPT maker.

OpenAI argues that Apple is using trade-secret litigation to impede a competitor and discourage staff from moving between companies. Its lawyers have asked the court to dismiss the complaint and, if any injunction is issued, to narrow it to avoid restricting lawful employee mobility and development of independent products.

The legal clash comes as OpenAI expands beyond software into consumer hardware. The company acquired io, the hardware venture associated with former Apple design chief Jony Ive, in a transaction announced in 2025, intensifying competition between two companies that had previously collaborated on integrating ChatGPT into Apple devices.