Apple asked 40 former employees not to delete data

According to Financial Time, a request to preserve legal evidence was sent by Apple to force the former employee not to delete any documents, messages or emails that may be related to the company's trade secrets. The move came after Apple filed a lawsuit on July 10 accusing OpenAI of conducting a coordinated campaign to steal hardware technology and product development processes.

In the application, the company mentioned two former senior managers, Tang Yew Tan, currently OpenAI's Hardware Director, and Chang Liu, OpenAI hardware engineer. However, the new data blockade shows that Apple believes the scale of the theft far exceeds the scope of the above two individuals.

According to court documents, Apple expressed deep concern about important data being sought to be destroyed by OpenAI and the defendants. The company emphasized that there are currently more than 400 former employees working for OpenAI. The number is so high that the company suspects that the violations are not a personal outburst, but a deliberate headhunting campaign from the company that owns ChatGPT.

Apple accused Mr. Tang Tan of directly asking candidates from Apple to bring unreleased hardware components to the interview at OpenAI. The file also mentions conversations between Tang Tan and an employee working at Apple, showing that he still used an unreturned device to illegally access his former company's internal network after resigning.

Analysts say that the motivation for OpenAI to "suck blood" of Apple's personnel and technology at all costs comes from its ambition to expand into the hardware segment. This startup is focusing on developing a new generation smart device, said to have a similar structure to Apple's HomePod speaker but operates entirely using ChatGPT.

"We have not seen any evidence that this complaint has any basis," an OpenAI representative responded to Bloomberg.

Apple is also asking the court to issue an emergency injunction, forcing OpenAI to end the use of any information originating from Apple in the development of AI hardware devices. At the same time, the company also requested compensation for financial damages and sued Tang Tan and Chang Liu personally for violating the labor contract and confidentiality agreement previously signed.

Apple's legal representative affirmed that what they offered was "the tip of the iceberg" and was determined to pursue the lawsuit to the end to recover the stolen intellectual property.