Apple's 41-page trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI contains allegations that go far beyond typical corporate espionage claims, painting a picture of systematic misconduct that the iPhone maker says is "normalized and exemplified by leadership."

The complaint, filed Friday, includes unusually detailed allegations of how OpenAI employees allegedly extracted confidential information from current and former Apple staff.

The most striking allegations

One message cited in the lawsuit shows Chang Liu, a former Apple senior systems electrical engineer who joined OpenAI, writing to an Apple employee: "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny."

Apple alleges Liu sent this message to Yu-Ting "Alyssa" Peng, described as "a conduit between Apple and OpenAI." Peng later left Apple to join OpenAI but is not named as a defendant.

The complaint describes OpenAI as "rotten to its core" — a pointed fruit analogy given rumors that the AI company is developing hardware to compete with the iPhone. Apple argues that OpenAI's "nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets."

Apple suggests the documented allegations represent only a fraction of the misconduct. "This is the tip of the iceberg," the complaint states, adding that "discovery will expose that the misappropriation has been occurring on a scale many times greater than the several instances described below."

Culture of misconduct

The lawsuit goes beyond targeting individual employees, explicitly stating that such behavior is "normalized and exemplified by leadership" at OpenAI. This framing suggests Apple views the alleged trade secret theft as institutional rather than the work of rogue actors.

The complaint also alleges that job candidates were asked to bring Apple hardware to interviews, though specific details of these claims were not provided in the available excerpts.

Apple filed the lawsuit after previously suing OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft. The discovery process could reveal additional communications and documents that support Apple's claims of widespread misconduct at the AI company.