Apple is asking a court to block OpenAI from advancing its AI hardware ambitions, filing for a preliminary injunction on August 4, 2026 in its trade-secrets case and claiming the scope of alleged misconduct is wider than first disclosed. In a new filing, Apple said its continued investigation has identified 11 other former Apple employees beyond the two originally named who may have been witnesses to or otherwise involved in the theft of confidential material. The company is also seeking expedited discovery from OpenAI, its foundation, and io, the device startup co-founded by Jony Ive.
The two employees at the center of the original complaint remain OpenAI senior systems engineer Chang Liu and Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan. A third former Apple employee named earlier, Yu-Ting Peng, is also cited in the new filing. Apple is arguing that the pattern of departures and the specifics uncovered since the initial suit justify faster discovery and a court order pausing OpenAI's hardware work.
The filing describes conduct Apple says goes beyond the two named defendants. It alleges that one former Apple employee met with Liu and Peng before Peng's OpenAI interview and discussed proprietary information about unannounced products. Another former employee, Apple says, took screenshots of confidential documents tied to an unannounced Apple product ahead of an OpenAI interview.
“For example, another former Apple employee seems to have met with Mr. Liu and Ms. Peng in advance of Ms. Peng's interview at OpenAI and discussed with them during that meeting Apple proprietary information relating to unannounced products”— Apple, court filing
Key facts
- 01Apple says 11 other former employees beyond the two originally named may have been witnesses or involved in the alleged trade-secrets theft.
- 02Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop OpenAI from developing an AI device or other products based on Apple technology.
- 03The filing names OpenAI senior systems engineer Chang Liu, Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan, and io, the device startup co-founded by Jony Ive.
- 04Apple alleges one former employee took screenshots of confidential documents about an unannounced product before an OpenAI interview.
- 05OpenAI called the injunction request 'based on false information' and said it does not have or want Apple's trade secrets.
Apple also claims that after it filed the original complaint, multiple former Apple employees who had moved to OpenAI reached out to discuss returning Apple-issued work devices they had kept after leaving. The company is presenting that pattern as evidence that residual access to Apple systems and hardware was more common than a two-person incident.
The stakes are hardware, not chatbots. io is the device company Jony Ive co-founded and that OpenAI has been building around as it pushes into consumer hardware. A preliminary injunction, if granted, would slow or freeze that program while the case proceeds — a meaningful timing hit in a market where OpenAI, Meta, and Google are all racing to define a post-smartphone AI device category.
OpenAI answered publicly in a blog post rejecting the injunction request as premature and unfounded. The company said Apple's motion is based on false information and that it has no interest in Apple's trade secrets, framing its focus as building new products rather than replicating Apple's.
“both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets.”— OpenAI, company statement
OpenAI's response also pushed back on Apple's account of the underlying events. The company pointed to reporting that Apple had emailed the wrong person when first contacting OpenAI, confusing two similar surnames. OpenAI further alleges Apple misrepresented the involvement of its general counsel in early discussions and that the residual system access Apple's former employees retained reflected weak offboarding procedures on Apple's side rather than deliberate exfiltration.
Neither side has filed a full evidentiary response to the other's characterization, and the court has not ruled on Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction or on the expedited discovery request. OpenAI has not filed a formal answer to the amended allegations covering the additional 11 former employees; the claims at this stage are Apple's, and the underlying facts have not been tested.
The case sits in a broader pattern of trade-secrets litigation moving through the AI hardware market as talent flows from established device makers to startups building novel form factors. What is unusual here is scale and specificity — the identification of 11 additional individuals, the screenshots claim, and the returned-device outreach turn what began as a two-person dispute into a systemic allegation about how OpenAI staffed its hardware team.
For OpenAI, the immediate risk is not damages but time. Injunctions that pause product development can compress launch windows in ways that are hard to recover, particularly when a competitor — in this case Apple itself — is working on adjacent hardware. For Apple, the litigation is both a defense of unannounced roadmap details and a signal to its own workforce about the cost of taking Apple materials to a rival. The next filings from OpenAI and io, and the court's ruling on the injunction, will determine whether this becomes a discovery-driven slog or a genuine constraint on OpenAI's hardware timeline.
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