1. Home
2. News
3. OpenAI

OpenAI says an ex-employee sent himself device files, then presented its plans to Apple

Apple sued in July saying its engineers carried its secrets to OpenAI. OpenAI now says one of its own carried device plans to Apple.

By Think Facility · October 14, 2026 · OpenAI Law Save

On October 14, 2026, OpenAI told a federal court in San Jose that a former employee sent himself over a hundred confidential files about at least one unreleased OpenAI device. He'd come to OpenAI from Apple. Six months later he went back.

It's in a four-page supplement OpenAI's lawyers filed that morning in Apple Inc. v. Liu, which is the trade secrets suit Apple brought against OpenAI on July 10. The man isn't named (OpenAI calls him only a former employee).

Filed

October 14, 2026, by OpenAI and io Products

Case

Apple Inc. v. Liu, 5:26-cv-07078, Northern District of California

Files

over a hundred, sent to personal accounts

Some sent

just after midnight in Singapore on June 2, 2026, his final day

OpenAI asks

room to investigate and, if necessary, file counterclaims

What OpenAI says he took

Detailed images of the device, for a start. The rest is the unglamorous paperwork of building hardware: manufacturing data, supplier lists, standards for cosmetic finishes, reports on how the parts get coated and sealed. Some of it, it turns out, went out just after midnight in Singapore on June 2, his last day.

Then there's the meeting. As OpenAI understands it, he talked Apple's senior leadership through OpenAI's plans, and Apple's vice president of operations in Asia was in the room.

When? It apparently happened months ago, and OpenAI doesn't get more precise than that (its words are "appears to have happened months ago"). It still ties the talk to what Apple is selling this week, though. A footnote points to Apple's newsroom post on its new smart home lineup and to a TechCrunch piece on HomeView, Apple's new smart display, which runs the updated Siri AI.

OpenAI says it took this to Apple first. It wanted assurances that Apple doesn't hold its information and hasn't used it, and so far it hasn't got them.

Apple's side of the case

Apple's complaint runs the other way. Former Apple employees now at OpenAI, it alleges, used Apple's proprietary information to help OpenAI build hardware (that's the judge's summary of it).

Judge Edward J. Davila ruled on the fight over early discovery just a day before OpenAI filed. Apple got some of what it wanted. The defendants must hand over the forensic images they've already collected, plus the guides OpenAI used to interview Apple candidates. Liu and Tan (the two individual defendants) must sit for depositions, and so must Alyssa Peng.

He said no for now to Apple's demand for OpenAI's research on things like metal finishes and batteries. And he called Apple's catch-all term, "Apple Originated Information," amorphous.

What's next

OpenAI asked to raise its new claims at the case management conference set for October 14. Only OpenAI's side of this one is readable so far.

No trial date's been set. Under the October 13 order, the defendants have five days to produce what they've already collected and 14 days for the rest.