Apple escalated its trade-secrets case against OpenAI on 4 August, filing motions for a preliminary injunction and for expedited discovery. Hours earlier, OpenAI had published a rebuttal on its own site, complete with screenshots of iMessage and email exchanges. The underlying complaint was filed in July 2026 against two individuals, Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan.
What Apple asked for
The motions seek to bar OpenAI from accessing or using Apple confidential information, to preserve evidence, to permit forensic inspection of devices, cloud accounts, email, Slack and Teams, and to return materials. An internal Apple investigation produced 11 further names. Apple says Liu "surreptitiously accessed and downloaded dozens of confidential hardware-related files"; his last day at the company was 22 January 2026.
Nothing has been decided
A motion is a request. No injunction has issued, no finding of misappropriation exists, and the hearing is 1 October. The 11 additional people are subjects of Apple's own internal review — they are not defendants and no court has assessed the claims against them. Headlines describing Apple as having blocked anything are describing a filing.
What OpenAI actually conceded
OpenAI's post is not a pleading. Its strongest points are procedural: Apple's lawyers wrote to the wrong person after confusing two surnames, and a conversation Apple said it had with OpenAI's general counsel, by Apple's own admission, never happened. On the substance, OpenAI does not deny that files were reached after departure — it argues Apple never revoked the access, and that Apple employees asked Liu for help locating those same files.
Scale
More than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. Tan spent over 24 years at Apple as a vice president of product design.