Apple reveals ‘shocking evidence’ from ex-employee’s MacBook in OpenAI suit

Apple has filed a new document in its ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI as it continues to push for expedited discovery. In today’s filing, Apple says that it has new “shocking evidence” based on early forensic inspection of a laptop used by former engineer Chang Liu.

Apple first filed the lawsuit in July, accusing ex-employees of stealing trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI. It moved for a preliminary injunction a few weeks later, while also asking the court to expedite discovery, including early document production and depositions of key OpenAI employees and executives. Apple again emphasized the need for expedited discovery last week. OpenAI has called for dismissal.

As covered before, Chang Liu is one of the parties named in Apple’s lawsuit. Liu was a senior system electrical engineer at Apple who left the company for OpenAI in January. The lawsuit alleges that Liu exploited a security bug to download confidential engineering files after leaving.

In today’s filing, Apple says that Liu’s lawyers recently handed over his MacBook that he used after leaving Apple. According to Apple, an “initial forensic analysis” of that MacBook revealed four things, quoted from Apple’s filing:

• Mr. Liu not only downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic but also used it in his work at OpenAI;
• Far from his unauthorized access to Apple’s third-party cloud storage being unknown to him, Mr. Liu and others at OpenAI were well-aware of that access;
• Mr. Liu, upon learning of Apple’s internal investigation of him, sent instructions for destroying evidence to an OpenAI colleague who confirmed she would comply; and
• Mr. Liu used a tool in his work at OpenAI that has the same name as an internal Apple engineering application used for Apple development work.