A federal judge has ordered OpenAI to hand over hiring and interview records to Apple in the iPhone maker's fast-moving trade-secrets lawsuit, granting Apple early access to internal documents that could show whether confidential Apple information followed departing employees into OpenAI's consumer-hardware division.
U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila of the Northern District of California issued the order on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, partly granting Apple's motion for expedited discovery in the case Apple Inc. v. Liu (No. 5:26-cv-07078). The ruling gives OpenAI five days to produce already-collected materials — including forensic images of devices, summaries of interviews with former Apple employees, and messages between the defendants — and fourteen days to turn over interview guides, checklists and other recruiting records.
The decision accelerates a case that cuts to the heart of the AI industry's talent war: Apple alleges that OpenAI systematically recruited away its hardware engineers and encouraged them to bring Apple's secrets with them.
What the order requires
Under the October 13 order, OpenAI must produce materials in two tranches:
- Within 5 days: materials OpenAI has already collected, including forensic images of devices belonging to the individual defendants; summaries of Apple-employee interviews; LINE messages between ex-Apple engineer Chang Liu and former Apple employee Yu-Ting "Alyssa" Peng dating back to 1 January 2026; and documents describing the ex-Apple hires' roles at OpenAI.
- Within 14 days: all other responsive materials — documents used to guide or conduct interviews of Apple candidates for OpenAI's Consumer Hardware Products Group, including its Robotics Group: interview checklists, guides, instructions, manuals, scripts, "Technical Deep Dive" presentations, and records showing whether interviews referenced Apple technology or components.
The order also authorises expedited depositions within 30 days after Apple receives the materials: Chang Liu, Tang Yew Tan and Alyssa Peng — all former Apple employees — plus corporate-representative depositions of OpenAI and its hardware subsidiary io Products on the witnesses' roles and responsibilities.
What the judge refused
The ruling was not a clean sweep for Apple. Judge Davila denied expedited access to OpenAI's research and development on metal finishes, power management and battery functionality, leaving those requests to the ordinary discovery timeline. He also deferred ruling on Apple's requests for so-called "Apple Originated Information," calling the term "amorphous as currently defined" and warning that complying with it as written could create an "extremely burdensome, and perhaps untenable task" for OpenAI. Apple is free to narrow and refile those requests.
The judge decided the motion without oral argument, vacating a hearing that had been set for 14 October — the day after the order — on OpenAI's motion to dismiss and Apple's bid for a preliminary injunction.
The underlying lawsuit
Apple filed suit in July 2026 against OpenAI, its hardware subsidiary io Products, ex-Apple engineer Chang Liu and ex-Apple hardware chief Tang Yew Tan. Apple alleges trade-secret misappropriation under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, plus breach of the individual defendants' intellectual-property agreements.
The complaint centres on a pattern of talent transfer into OpenAI's hardware effort. Liu, an eight-year Apple senior systems electrical engineer who joined OpenAI around January 2026, allegedly kept an Apple-issued laptop after leaving, downloaded confidential files — technical specifications, engineering presentations, proprietary project data and unreleased-product details — and continued using Apple network access after his departure. Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran who was vice president of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch and is now OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer, allegedly used Apple's confidential project code names in recruiting, quizzed candidates about unannounced products, and encouraged recruits to bring actual hardware parts and prototypes to "show and tell" interviews.
Apple has also accused OpenAI of destroying evidence — alleging Liu used a confidential Apple circuit schematic in his OpenAI work — while pressing for its own forensic specialists to examine raw device data. OpenAI, in turn, has argued the lawsuit is baseless and, per court reporting, "a pretext to compensate for Apple's shortcomings in the market for talent." The company has moved to dismiss the suit and opposed expedited discovery as overly broad and unnecessary.
Why expedited discovery was granted
Apple's urgency argument rested on two pillars: the risk of evidence destruction, and the need to build the record for its preliminary-injunction request. On the first, Judge Davila cited a conversation between Liu and Peng about wiping their Apple-owned electronics as evidence of "a valid risk that critical forensic evidence… could be destroyed." On the second, the expedited record will now feed Apple's push for a court order barring the defendants from using any alleged Apple secrets while the case proceeds.
Apple says ex-Apple employees at OpenAI coached candidates on what information to bring to interviews and taught departing staff how to evade Apple's security procedures. The hiring-records production is designed to test exactly that: whether OpenAI's recruiting machine was built to harvest Apple know-how.
