Apple Says Former Engineer Used Stolen Trade Secrets at OpenAI, Taught AI Agent to Run Them

Apple today submitted new evidence in its lawsuit against OpenAI, with the hope that the new information will persuade the judge to grant an expedited discovery process.

Apple filed a theft of trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI employees Chang Liu and Tang Tan in July, accusing them of using multiple methods to steal data from Apple. Liu kept an Apple-issued MacBook after he left for OpenAI, and Apple got it back after the lawsuit was filed. Apple now says forensic analysis of the laptop has uncovered more evidence of Liu's use of Apple information and his attempts to hide what he'd done.

From the lawsuit:

• 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.

Liu downloaded the circuit schematic from Apple in March, two months after he left the company. Liu used the schematic to run a simulation using electrical engineering tool LTspice, and then messaged people telling them he ran the simulation for power conversion development work. Liu described how he trained an AI agent to run LTspice.