An OpenAI employee who left the ChatGPT maker for Apple sent more than 100 files about an unreleased product to a personal account and later presented the product to senior Apple leadership, a new filing in the lawsuit between OpenAI and Apple alleges.
In the filing in US federal court in San Jose, California, OpenAI alleged the presentation happened months ago and that Apple is now making AI products of its own, citing the release of Apple’s HomeView smart-home hub this week.
“OpenAI is very concerned that its trade secret and confidential information is now circulating inside Apple, where Apple engineers can shape Apple’s upcoming products based on OpenAI’s confidential and innovative work,” OpenAI said in its filing.
Apple said it has policies and procedures in place to ensure new employees do not use confidential information from previous employers, and that it has found no evidence to support OpenAI’s allegations.
The document, filed on Tuesday, is part of a trade secrets dispute Apple started earlier this year, in which it alleged that employees of the iPhone maker left and took confidential information to OpenAI’s hardware division. OpenAI has denied those allegations.
The duelling allegations underscore the intensifying battle between the two companies over talent and intellectual property as OpenAI pushes into consumer hardware, a market long dominated by Apple.
Apple responds
In a 12 October letter to OpenAI, made public in another court filing on Wednesday, Apple’s lawyers said the two personal phone numbers OpenAI identified as recipients of the files do not match the number the employee uses for his Apple work. That meant Apple did not appear to have possession, custody or control of data sent to those numbers while he worked at OpenAI.
Apple’s lawyers also said its investigation of repositories associated with his work had so far found no evidence of OpenAI files on Apple’s servers. Apple had not learned of any presentation by the employee about unreleased OpenAI products and asked OpenAI for more information, the letter showed.
In the court filing, Apple said OpenAI did not respond and instead went to court. Apple said it would continue to work with OpenAI to investigate the allegations.
Earlier this week, US district judge Edward Davila granted part of Apple’s request for early access to digital files from OpenAI in the suit. Apple may gather data from some of its former employees’ devices and depose three of them on an accelerated schedule, including the two defendants in the case: Chang Liu, a former Apple senior systems electrical engineer, and Tang Yew Tan, Apple’s former vice-president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch.
The case is likely to go to trial in October 2027, though OpenAI has said in court filings that it could be ready as soon as June 2027. — Stephen Nellis, Deepa Seetharaman and Ananya Palyekar, © 2026 Reuters
