OpenAI’s lawsuit alleges that an employee who moved to Apple took documents concerning unreleased devices.

An employee at OpenAI—the developer of ChatGPT—left the company to join Apple, taking with them over 100 files concerning unreleased products, which they subsequently presented to senior Apple leadership. This allegation is contained in a new filing submitted as part of a legal dispute between OpenAI and Apple.

In the filing, submitted to a U.S. federal court in San Jose, California, OpenAI claims that this presentation took place several months ago. The filing notes that Apple is currently developing its own AI products, pointing specifically to the “HomeView” product that Apple unveiled this week.

In the document, OpenAI states: “OpenAI is deeply concerned that its trade secrets and confidential information are now circulating within Apple, and that Apple engineers could shape Apple’s upcoming products based on OpenAI’s confidential and innovative work.”

Apple stated that it has established policies and procedures to ensure new hires do not use confidential information from their former employers, adding that it has found no evidence to support OpenAI’s allegations.

The filing, submitted on Tuesday, is part of a trade secret dispute initiated by Apple earlier this year. In the case, Apple alleges that an employee left the company and took confidential information to OpenAI’s hardware division—a claim that OpenAI denies.

As OpenAI expands into the consumer hardware market—a sector long dominated by Apple—the competition between the two tech giants over talent and intellectual property has intensified, with their respective accusations underscoring this escalating rivalry.

In an October 12 letter to OpenAI—made public on Wednesday in a separate court filing—Apple’s legal counsel noted that the two phone numbers identified by OpenAI as recipients of the files do not match the numbers the employee used while at Apple. Consequently, it appears that Apple does not possess, maintain, or control any data sent to these numbers during the employee’s tenure at OpenAI.

Apple’s lawyers also stated that, based on the company’s internal investigation into its work-related codebases, no files belonging to OpenAI have been found on Apple’s servers. The correspondence indicates that Apple had not previously received any demonstrations of unreleased OpenAI products from the employee in question, and that it has requested further information from OpenAI.

In a court filing, Apple noted that OpenAI did not respond to these inquiries, choosing instead to pursue legal action. Apple stated that it intends to continue working with OpenAI to investigate the allegations.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila granted a partial request by Apple to obtain early access to digital files from OpenAI as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

Judge Davila ruled that Apple may collect data from the devices of several former employees and expedite the scheduling of depositions for three of them—including two defendants in the case: Liu Chang, a former senior systems electrical engineer, and Tang Yaotan, a former vice president of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch.

The case is likely to go to trial in October 2027, though OpenAI indicated in court filings that it could be ready for trial as early as June 2027.