Judge orders OpenAI to turn over hiring records in Apple trade secrets case

TechCrunch reports that U.S. District Judge Edward Davila granted Apple expedited discovery into OpenAI’s hiring materials for former Apple employees who interviewed for consumer hardware and robotics roles. OpenAI has five days to produce materials already collected and 14 days for related remaining documents—potentially including interview checklists, guides, scripts, technical presentations, and records of Apple technology discussed in interviews.

Apple’s July lawsuit alleges a pattern of trade-secret theft, including ex-employees downloading confidential files about unannounced products and coaching candidates on what to bring to OpenAI interviews. The judge also allowed access to certain private LINE messages and depositions of OpenAI employees Chang Liu and Alyssa Peng and chief hardware officer Tang Yew Tan—all former Apple employees.

Broader asks for OpenAI hardware R&D and what ex-Apple staff built at OpenAI were denied for now, with room for Apple to narrow and retry.

This is the talent war with subpoenas. Apple does not need to win the whole case tomorrow to make OpenAI uncomfortable; it needs the interview room paper trail while memories and messages are fresh.

Judge Davila’s split ruling is careful. Hiring and coaching materials go to the heart of Apple’s poaching-and-pipelining theory. Fishing through OpenAI’s entire hardware research stack does not—yet. That keeps the case focused on whether recruitment became a channel for Apple’s unannounced tech, not a premature teardown of OpenAI’s device roadmap.

We’re not adjudicating guilt from a discovery order. We are noting the stakes. OpenAI’s rumored consumer device puts it on a collision course with Apple’s hardware culture, supply chain secrets, and employee non-solicit norms. Expedited LINE messages and hardware-leader depositions mean the human network between Cupertino and OpenAI will be mapped in public filings.

For the industry, the signal is that AI labs building devices will face the same trade-secret playbook Apple has used for decades—only now the alleged misappropriation rides along with the most expensive hiring spree in tech.

Apple sued OpenAI in July over alleged trade-secret issues tied to employees leaving Apple for OpenAI’s hardware and robotics efforts. Discovery fights determine how much of that hiring pipeline becomes visible before trial.