Apple Threatens Dozens of Former Employees Who Joined OpenAI with Lawsuits

Apple is escalating its legal battle with OpenAI by threatening dozens of former employees who left the company to join the AI startup with lawsuits over alleged trade secret theft, as reported by the Financial Times via Maeil Business Newspaper. The pressure campaign targets individual employees rather than just the companies involved.

According to the report, Apple alleges that these former employees brought sensitive proprietary information and technical know-how to OpenAI when they left the company. Apple believes this confidential information may have been used in the development of OpenAI's products, giving the AI company an unfair competitive advantage.

This represents a significant escalation in the legal dispute between Apple and OpenAI. On July 12, Apple filed a formal lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of systematic trade secret theft. The new threat of legal action against dozens of individual former employees shows Apple is pursuing the matter on multiple fronts — both the company and the people it believes were involved in transferring confidential information.

OpenAI publicly pushed back on July 14, suggesting the lawsuit lacks merit and framing it as an attempt by a large tech company to stifle competition through legal means. The new pressure on individual former employees is likely to further intensify the confrontation between the two companies.

For the affected former employees, the situation creates a difficult dilemma — Apple's legal threats could impact their career prospects and legal security, while it remains unclear whether OpenAI will provide adequate legal protection for these individuals. While trade secret lawsuits are common competitive tools in tech industry talent mobility, targeting dozens of individual employees on this scale is unusual.

The incident has also sparked broader discussion across Silicon Valley about talent mobility and intellectual property protection. In an era of unprecedented competition for AI talent, similar cross-company hiring disputes are likely to become increasingly frequent.

Key developments to watch include whether Apple formally files lawsuits against specific former employees, the legal outcomes of any cases, and whether this large-scale legal pressure campaign will materially affect the talent flow between Apple and OpenAI.