Apple claims 11 more ex-employees tied to OpenAI trade secrets theft

Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI just got a lot bigger. A new court filing reveals the iPhone maker is pushing for a preliminary injunction to halt the AI company’s hardware ambitions, and it says its investigation has unearthed 11 additional former employees who may be witnesses or directly involved. The original complaint named senior systems engineer Chang Liu and Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan, but Apple now paints a picture of a wider, more coordinated effort to funnel proprietary information out of Cupertino.

The filing includes some genuinely eyebrow-raising specifics. One ex-Apple employee allegedly met with Liu and another OpenAI staffer, Yu-Ting Peng, before Peng’s interview at the AI firm, and during that meeting they discussed Apple’s confidential details about unannounced products. Another former staffer reportedly took screenshots of secret Apple documents right before their own OpenAI interview. After Apple filed the initial complaint, the company says multiple ex-employees now at OpenAI reached out to arrange returning Apple-issued devices they had kept after leaving — a detail that suggests at least some people got spooked.

OpenAI wasted no time firing back publicly. In a blog post, the company called Apple’s injunction request “based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets.” It also jabbed at Apple’s process, pointing out that the company initially emailed the wrong person due to a surname mix-up and allegedly lied about discussions with OpenAI’s general counsel. OpenAI even blamed Apple’s own security lapses for any “residual access” former employees retained.

The subtext here is a hardware collision course. Apple’s push for a preliminary injunction isn’t just about punishing past behavior — it’s explicitly aimed at preventing OpenAI from developing a device or product that leans on Apple’s tech. With Jony Ive’s startup io also named in the discovery demands, the legal battle is starting to look like a proxy war over the next generation of AI-powered hardware. If Apple’s expedited discovery request is granted, this could get much messier for Sam Altman’s team before it gets any clearer.