Documents become part of the dispute between Apple and OpenAI
Apple's identification of 11 more former employees and OpenAI's publication of message threads moved the trade-secret dispute from alleged file transfers to competing accounts of the documents.
Artificial Intelligence··Evening
Apple widened the circle of people and documents
Apple's request for expedited discovery and a preliminary injunction in Apple Inc. v. Liu widened its allegations beyond Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan to 11 other former employees who, the company says, may also have carried confidential material. In the filing reported by TechCrunch, Apple alleges that one former employee met Liu and OpenAI employee Yu-Ting Peng before Peng's OpenAI interview to discuss company information about unannounced products. It also says another former employee took screenshots of confidential documents before an OpenAI interview. Several former employees reportedly contacted Apple after the complaint was filed to return company-issued work devices. Those details broaden the case filed on 10 July 2026 from a departure story centered on two named people into an inquiry involving meetings, screenshots, work devices and possible file transfers across a larger group. Apple is seeking to stop OpenAI from developing products based on its technology. The filing also names former Apple hardware chief Tan and Jony Ive, a co-founder of OpenAI's io venture; no court has ruled on the allegations.[1]
OpenAI published its own message trail
OpenAI's response went beyond a statement denying the suit. In a post arguing that Apple is getting the dispute wrong, the company published iMessage threads and emails that it says show Apple employees continuing to ask former colleague Chang Liu technical questions after he left. In the sequence reported by THE DECODER, Liu, whose last day at Apple was 22 January 2026, was added to a group chat on 5 March. He directed colleagues to internal resources, then wrote that the request was highly irregular and removed himself from the chat. OpenAI presented those exchanges against Apple's account that Liu improperly accessed confidential material after joining OpenAI and that departing employees were encouraged to take files during their notice periods. The report also says about 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. THE DECODER further reports that Apple's outside counsel wrote to the wrong OpenAI recipient and inaccurately said the lawyers had spoken with the company's general counsel. The disagreement therefore now reaches the destination of a legal message, the requests made in a group conversation and Liu's response, alongside the central question of who moved which files.[2]
Two document trails in one dispute
Taken together, the two developments make the documentary material part of the parties' competing accounts. Apple's new filing expands the alleged path of confidential information toward 11 additional former employees, placing a meeting, screenshots and attempts to return company devices within one trade-secret claim. OpenAI, by contrast, foregrounds the conversations and emails it made public: Liu's responses to questions from former colleagues and the procedural problems it identifies in Apple's legal correspondence. The two moves construct different portions of the same chronology. Apple describes what employees may have carried around job interviews and departures, while OpenAI focuses on what Apple employees requested in conversations after Liu left. Apple's request for a preliminary injunction connects that dispute over documents to a judicial remedy that could restrict OpenAI's development of products based on Apple technology. OpenAI says it neither has nor wants Apple's trade secrets. For now, the published messages, the allegations concerning screenshots and devices, and the suspicions involving 11 more people remain accounts advanced by the parties. The court has not decided whether the allegations are true or what legal consequence should follow from them.[1], [2]
