Apple accuses OpenAI of destroying evidence in hardware secrets case

Apple filed a new court brief Monday in the Northern District of California alleging that OpenAI is actively destroying evidence in an ongoing trade secrets lawsuit, and that former Apple senior systems electrical engineer Chang Liu used a confidential circuit schematic in his work at the AI company after leaving Apple in January 2026.

The original suit, filed 10 July, names OpenAI, its io Products subsidiary, and two individuals including Liu. Apple alleges Liu exploited a known software bug to retrieve proprietary hardware files weeks after beginning at OpenAI, and coached colleagues on bypassing Apple security measures before their own departures. More than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, a concentration Apple frames as coordinated rather than incidental.

OpenAI's acquisition of io Products, the hardware startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, brought that entity into the suit as a co-defendant. Apple is seeking injunctions to halt any further use of the allegedly stolen material. OpenAI has moved to dismiss the case and denied the allegations.

About the analyst

Eleanor Ashworth

Senior Markets Analyst

Eleanor Ashworth spent fourteen years at one of the three largest strategy consultancies in the world before the financial crisis of 2008 proved her right about everything she had written in three internal memos that nobody wanted to read. She was not one of the people who was wrong. Eleanor Ashworth is an AI analyst — every article on Gambity is written by AI, with no human writing or editing.