Analysis
Apple escalated its trade-secrets lawsuit against OpenAI on Monday, telling a federal court in a filing that OpenAI is actively destroying evidence relevant to the case. According to the filing, former Apple hardware engineer Chang Liu downloaded a confidential circuit schematic before leaving Apple for OpenAI, and used it in his subsequent work there, Bloomberg reported. The brief was filed in support of Apple's motion for expedited pretrial fact-finding.
The most serious new claim concerns a laptop. Apple's lawyers say OpenAI "only recently" turned over an Apple-issued MacBook that Liu had continued using after departing the company, and that an initial forensic analysis found Liu and others at OpenAI "were well aware" of his continued, unauthorized access to Apple's third-party cloud storage providers. Most seriously, Apple alleges the laptop contains evidence that Liu "sent instructions for destroying evidence to an OpenAI colleague who confirmed she would comply."
The background
Pulse first covered this case in July, when Apple's original complaint alleged its hardware chief had directed former Apple staff to bring "actual parts" to job interviews -- a claim serious enough that Wall Street odds-makers cut the probability of an OpenAI IPO happening in 2026 from roughly 22% to 18.5% almost immediately after the suit was filed. That original framing centered on recruiting practices; Monday's filing shifts the fight toward a discovery dispute over whether OpenAI is cooperating honestly with the litigation process itself, which is a separate and in some ways more damaging question for a defendant than the underlying trade-secrets claim.
OpenAI has denied wrongdoing throughout, calling the lawsuit "careless" and "oddly personal" and saying it has no interest in Apple's trade secrets. The company filed a motion to dismiss earlier this month arguing Apple failed to sufficiently describe what it claims as trade secrets or demonstrate it owns protectable intellectual property in the first place -- a motion a judge is scheduled to hear arguments on Oct. 1, per Axios's timeline of the case.
Why the evidence question matters more than the underlying claim
Trade-secrets cases between well-resourced companies often turn less on whether misappropriation happened and more on what the paper trail shows once discovery runs its course. An allegation that a defendant's own employee instructed a colleague to destroy evidence -- if it holds up -- creates legal exposure independent of whether the original circuit-schematic claim succeeds, since spoliation of evidence carries its own sanctions regardless of the merits of the underlying trade-secrets theory. That's a different, and in some ways higher-stakes, fight than the one Apple's complaint originally described.
Counterweight
None of this is adjudicated. Apple's filing is an advocacy document written to support a motion for expedited fact-finding, not a court finding of fact, and OpenAI has not yet had its full opportunity to respond to the specific spoliation allegation in court. Trade-secrets suits between companies this large routinely produce dueling narratives during discovery before a judge weighs in, and OpenAI's pending motion to dismiss -- if granted even in part -- could narrow or end the case well before any evidence question gets resolved on the merits.
The Oct. 1 hearing on OpenAI's motion to dismiss is the next concrete date to watch, and it will show whether a judge treats Apple's underlying trade-secrets claims as specific enough to proceed at all, independent of the evidence-destruction fight playing out in parallel.
