In today’s filing, Apple says that Liu’s lawyers recently handed over his MacBook that he used after leaving Apple. According to Apple, an “initial forensic analysis” of that MacBook revealed four things, quoted from Apple’s filing:

  • Mr. Liu not only downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic but also used it in his work at OpenAI;
  • Far from his unauthorized access to Apple’s third-party cloud storage being unknown to him, Mr. Liu and others at OpenAI were well-aware of that access;
  • Mr. Liu, upon learning of Apple’s internal investigation of him, sent instructions for destroying evidence to an OpenAI colleague who confirmed she would comply; and
  • Mr. Liu used a tool in his work at OpenAI that has the same name as an internal Apple engineering application used for Apple development work.