Apple is gunning for OpenAI, demanding steep penalties after stumbling on a “rare” bug that temporarily allowed a poached employee that joined OpenAI to maintain access to confidential information on Apple servers for weeks after his termination.
In a lawsuit filed Friday, Apple sought several injunctions blocking OpenAI from using confidential information allegedly stolen by former employees. According to Apple’s complaint, OpenAI conspired with former Apple employees as part of a grand scheme to “take an unlawful shortcut” and launch a line of AI-powered devices as marketable as Apple’s iPhone.
Apple explained that it found a bug while investigating internal messages between a then-current employee, Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, and an engineer who spent eight years “working on some of Apple’s most sensitive product development programs,” Chang Liu.
Liu left Apple for OpenAI in January 2026. However, on February 9, Liu discovered an “authentication bug” that was unknown to Apple at the time. The bug allowed him to “access Apple’s shared network folders,” while using an Apple-issued work laptop that he should have returned, the lawsuit said.
Rather than report the bug to Apple, Liu allegedly seized the opportunity to download files detailing various aspects of Apple’s business.
Specifically, Apple alleged that “over several weeks, while developing hardware for OpenAI, Mr. Liu surreptitiously accessed and downloaded dozens of Apple’s confidential hardware-related files, including voluminous, detailed information about unreleased products, engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data,” the lawsuit claimed.
Particularly concerning to Apple, Liu allegedly downloaded a presentation on Apple’s complex circuit boards that Apple claimed would be “invaluable to anyone developing hardware.” Some files were “expressly labeled as confidential,” Apple claimed.
“LOL,” Liu wrote in a message to Peng, which was among many mocking Apple that Liu apparently left on his Apple-issued work laptop. “I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.”
In a footnote, Apple confirmed that the bug was “quickly fixed” after they found Liu’s messages and that it did not appear to be widely exploited.
“Although Apple is still investigating, server logs show that, unlike Mr. Liu, the few other users affected by this bug do not appear to have accessed or stolen Apple’s confidential information,” the lawsuit said.
Yet fixing the bug won’t end the alleged theft of Apple trade secrets, the complaint said.
The exchanges between Liu and Peng, as well as other evidence that Apple cited—including support for allegations that Apple’s former vice president of product design for iPhone, Tang Yew Tan, is spearheading the OpenAI scheme—are just the “tip of the iceberg,” Apple claimed.
In a statement provided to Ars, a spokesperson confirmed that OpenAI is still reviewing Apple’s complaint but disputes the core claim that OpenAI is relying on Apple insights to build a hardware business that could rival Apple’s device empire.
“We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets,” OpenAI’s spokesperson said. “We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”
This weekend on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went further when responding to another user claiming that OpenAI was afraid of Apple’s lawsuit. In a post, Altman wrote, “I am not afraid of Apple, but I have tremendous respect for them.”
OpenAI requested Apple “show and tells”
Apple is urging the court to intervene and stop OpenAI from benefiting from the allegedly rampant theft after poaching more than 400 former Apple employees.
Beyond Liu and Peng’s alleged conspiring, the discovery process will reveal an even broader “pattern of theft of Apple’s trade secrets by OpenAI employees who were formerly at Apple,” the smartphone manufacturer alleged.
Supposedly directing the recruiting scheme is Tang Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple before joining former Apple design chief Jony Ive’s io Products and then becoming OpenAI’s chief hardware officer in 2025.
According to Apple, Tan has relied on his insider knowledge, like knowing secret project code names, to get Apple employees to discuss unreleased products during job interviews. He also allegedly used an internal Apple document to create a checklist to help departing Apple employees evade security measures when stealing trade secrets.
Perhaps most egregiously, Tan is accused of asking Apple employees to bring in computer parts for “show and tell” sessions that Apple claimed “would disclose Apple’s proprietary technologies” way beyond what reverse-engineering the parts might allow OpenAI to learn about Apple’s tech.
Those claims seemingly also rest on messages left on Liu’s laptop discussing Tan’s alleged instructions to Apple employees to share information, which Liu allegedly referred to while coaching Peng on how to “avoid trouble” when she left Apple for OpenAI, the lawsuit said.
Liu also allegedly sent Peng messages on how to get hired by OpenAI and avoid repeating mistakes of other former Apple staffers who “fumbled” their interviews by failing to give desired insights into Apple’s “top-secret projects” and unreleased products, the complaint said.
The Wall Street Journal noted that it’s common for engineers to bring computer parts to job interviews, and it’s possible that only non-proprietary information was discussed. So it remains unclear what evidence Apple may use to justify such explosive claims against a former senior executive or any of its former staffers.
Apple calls OpenAI plan “rotten”
Of course, it’s not the first time Apple has accused a rival device maker of poaching staff to steal its technology, and Apple hasn’t always finished those legal battles in court. Apple settled a long, expensive fight with Samsung in 2018 and dropped a chip design fight with Nvidia in 2023, The New York Times reported.
In the OpenAI case, the WSJ suggested that Apple might be motivated to bring the lawsuit just to slow down either OpenAI’s device development or the poaching of its employees.
But Apple seems determined to expose any possible avenue OpenAI might take to use its secrets to race ahead to make rival devices. And Liu’s messages with Peng appear to be the strongest evidence Apple has yet that OpenAI is potentially willfully and/or maliciously striving to copy not only Apple’s technical solutions but also the carefully guarded elements of its business strategy.
Apple’s complaint acknowledged that “Apple lacks visibility into what’s been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership.”
“This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” Apple’s complaint said. “As a natural result, OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.”
