OpenAI has accused a former employee of taking more than 100 confidential files about its unreleased hardware back to Apple, in a court filing submitted on Wednesday reported by The Register. The employee, who joined OpenAI from Apple and returned to the iPhone maker about six months later, allegedly transferred sensitive documents to personal accounts before leaving.
According to the filing, the files included detailed images of at least one unreleased OpenAI device, engineering and manufacturing data, supplier information and project files, with some transfers made just after midnight in Singapore on June 2, which the filing says was the employee’s final day. OpenAI further alleges the former employee presented its product plans to Apple’s senior leadership, including its vice president of operations in Asia, and told the court it is concerned the material is now circulating inside Apple as the company pushes into AI powered hardware.
Apple says it has not found anything to back up the claims and that it has rules to stop staff bringing former employers’ secrets into the company. No counterclaims have yet been filed; OpenAI asked the court for time to investigate and potentially bring them.
The filing reverses the direction of the case. Apple sued OpenAI in July, alleging former employees Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan took confidential engineering information to help OpenAI develop its own hardware, which OpenAI denied. The dispute now runs both ways, and both companies’ unreleased hardware programmes are being described, under oath, by their competitor.