Apple shares ‘shocking evidence’ against former employee accused of stealing company data for OpenAI
5:13 PM PDT · August 31, 2026
In its lawsuit against OpenAI, Apple filed what it calls “shocking evidence” to bolster its allegations that former employees stole trade secrets for OpenAI’s benefit. These new details emerged after the legal counsel for former Apple employee Chang Liu — who now works at OpenAI — handed over Liu’s old Apple work laptop for investigation earlier this month.
Apple now alleges that Liu used a confidential Apple circuit schematic in his work at OpenAI, as well as a tool that shares a name with an internal Apple engineering application. The company claims that OpenAI was “well-aware” of Liu’s access to Apple data, and that Liu enlisted OpenAI colleague Yu-Ting Peng to help destroy evidence in June when he learned that Apple was investigating him.
“The MacBook represents the very limited information Defendants provided so far (and only after weeks of delay), and shows Apple is not conducting ‘fishing expeditions’ but that its trade secrets are being used and evidence is being destroyed,” the filing reads.
While this new evidence is redacted from public view, past filings from Apple have included text messages from Liu — which he punctuated with “crying laughing” emojis — showing he was aware that he still had access to Apple files.
OpenAI has previously defended Liu by saying that he only accessed Apple files after he stopped working there in order to help former colleagues who asked for his assistance. “Apple now tries to shift the blame to ‘residual access,’ but they also don’t disclose that this is a common issue with Apple which is caused by them failing to properly manage system access when people leave,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post earlier this month.
But Apple claims that Liu had continued access because he “exploited a rare, previously unknown authentication bug.”
TechCrunch has requested comment from OpenAI on Apple’s newest allegations.
Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction — a court order that would block OpenAI from working on hardware based on Apple’s technology while the case is ongoing — as well as expedited discovery, a fast-tracked process for gathering evidence, since the company alleges that more former employees may also be implicated.
According to Apple’s initial filing, more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI.
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Apple’s top App Store exec, Phil Schiller, follows wave of exits as CEO Tim Cook steps down
12:02 PM PDT · August 31, 2026
Tim Cook is departing from his long-held role as Apple’s CEO — and a wave of top executives are heading for the exits as he does.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Phil Schiller, long the head of Apple’s App Store, stepped down from his position in recent days. Schiller has been with the company since 1987, with only a four-year break during that time. He took over the App Store in 2015.
However, Schiller won’t be leaving the company entirely. He will be staying on as an Apple Fellow, a role reserved for people who have made outstanding technical or leadership contributions to the company. In that role, he will be working on unspecified projects, although Bloomberg notes that insiders at the company believe that Schiller’s Fellow role is “a big step toward the executive ultimately retiring.”
Schiller shepherded the company through a lawsuit involving Epic Games over the App Store’s in-app fee system. Epic filed an antitrust lawsuit in 2020, claiming that Apple had created an illegal monopoly. The monopoly claims were ultimately dismissed, and the judge in the case largely ruled in Apple’s favor. However, the company was still ordered to ensure that app developers could link to external payment options. The legal fight is still ongoing.
As Schiller steps down, Apple plans to delegate day-to-day operations of the App Store to Carson Oliver, who has been at Apple for over 14 years and has worked in the App Store division for the entirety of that time. The App Store is also being transitioned from the marketing department to the services division, which is headed by Eddy Cue, Bloomberg writes. TechCrunch reached out to Apple for more information about the transition.
Schiller’s exit follows a series of other high-level departures for the iPhone maker. The company recently lost its chief operating officer Jeff Williams, who retired in December after 27 years with the company. The retirement of Lisa Jackson, vice president for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, was also announced in December, as was that of general counsel Kate Adams. Jennifer Bailey, longtime head of Apple Pay, is set to retire in October after over 20 years with the company.
In June, Apple also lost Paul Meade, the Apple vice president in charge of the Vision Pro headset, who left the company to join OpenAI. In Meade’s absence, Apple has since downsized the Vision Pro team, which had lost around 100 employees as of two weeks ago.
As John Ternus takes the reins as CEO, he will be tasked with repopulating Apple’s ranks with a new generation of corporate leaders — among many other tasks currently facing the new chief executive.
Topics
app store, Apple, Apps, phil schiller
Tim Cook’s parting message: Apple is in the hands of a product builder
10:02 AM PDT · August 31, 2026
On his last day as Apple CEO, Tim Cook offered a rousing endorsement of his successor: John Ternus, the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. In a memo to employees, Cook reminded staff that he’s “not leaving Apple,” just stepping away from the role of CEO, while declaring that “few people understand what it takes to build products that change the world the way John does.”
Ternus’ elevation to the top job suggests that Apple’s next era will see a renewed focus on hardware and product execution. Under Ternus, Apple shipped a number of notable products, most recently, the new ultra-thin iPhone Air, the lower-cost MacBook Neo, and AirPods with hearing health features. He also led the hardware engineering team across Apple’s full device lineup.
Hardware will play an important role in the AI era, not only in terms of chips, but also the devices people use to run enterprise AI. Apple this year, for instance, offered earlier releases of its new Mac models, the Mac mini and Mac Studio, compared with years past, driven by AI demand.
Cook’s memo, reported by Bloomberg and others, naturally says little about Apple’s future when it comes to AI, services, regulation, China, or the other challenges that lie ahead. Instead, Cook focuses on his gratitude for the opportunity to lead Apple and exalts the company’s culture as ultimately what matters most.
“We share a belief that what we build matters and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it,” Cook wrote. He also referenced the famous Steve Jobs quote about leaving a “dent in the universe,” saying that Apple makes that possible because of “who we are and what we believe,” as well as “what we value and how we see the world.”
Cook will remain at Apple as executive chairman and will continue to manage political relationships, including those with President Trump and the Chinese government.
On X, Cook also wrote: “Sending lots of love to the Apple community on my last day as CEO. My title changes tomorrow, but the love I have for the Apple community never will. Thank you for being a constant source of inspiration. My gratitude is endless, and I’m excited for the next chapter!”
The full memo is below (via Bloomberg):
Team,
Today is my last day as CEO of Apple. This is a moment I always knew would come one day, and yet it is still hard to believe it has arrived and I am writing these words. I love this company and the team behind it, and I couldn’t let this day pass without sending a note to you to tell you how grateful I am for the outpouring of affection you’ve sent my way, for the way you’ve shown up each and every day, and most of all, for the privilege of a lifetime serving as your leader.
The truth is, whatever there is to say about my success, I know it is all because of you. You have brought out the best in me. In all my life, I have never seen or been with such an extraordinary team of people before, and every day I get to see more examples of that.
There is something truly special about Apple. I am most proud of what an annual report could never capture. This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything. We share a belief that what we build matters and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. That purpose is part of what makes this place extraordinary. Apple helps nurture it, but I believe it lived within each of you long before you arrived here. It is what brought you to this company and what continues to drive the work you do every day.
Together, we have created something far greater than any one of us could have imagined or accomplished alone. And that’s the secret to our success. We bring out the best in each other. We lift each other up. We have made it possible to leave our “dent in the universe,” as Steve once described it, because of who we are and what we believe, because of what we value and how we see the world. How fortunate we are. How fortunate I am.
As you know, I am not leaving Apple. But I am stepping away from a role that I have loved deeply. I will miss this work in ways I can only begin to imagine, even as I remain completely at peace with my decision. I will miss leading you and being with you for every step, even as I take enormous comfort in handing the helm to someone as brilliant and wonderful and capable as John. Few people understand what it takes to build products that change the world the way John does and I could not be more excited for his leadership.
I hope you know how much I appreciate you and what an honor it has been to be your CEO. Most of all, I hope you will continue to be proud to be part of this remarkable place we call Apple and always give it your very best. When we bring our whole selves to this work, with care for one another and for the people we serve, there is no limit to the profound difference we can make.
I look forward to seeing you in my new role at Apple Park and around the world.
With all I have and all I am, I am always.
Yours,
Tim
Topics
Apple, Hardware, John Ternus, Tim Cook
The Pentagon now has its own version of ChatGPT and Grok
1:13 PM PDT · August 31, 2026
The Pentagon has launched versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok, giving 3 million civilian and military personnel access to generative AI tools that have been tailored to “warfighter needs.”
ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government — custom versions of the popular consumer generative AI tools — are now part of GenAI.mil, a centralized, secure portal launched last year.
GenAI.mil, which offered Google Gemini when it first launched, is designed to give Department of Defense employees access to commercial frontier AI models without sending sensitive government data through ordinary consumer channels. In particular, the official military version is exempt from the data collection that is difficult to avoid in consumer tech products.
And according to the Department of Defense, the generative AI portal has proven popular. GenAI.mil has already onboarded more than 1.7 million unique users out of the department’s 3 million personnel, according to the department.
These latest additions are part of the Pentagon’s broader effort to use AI tools to accelerate work and give the Department of Defense an edge without sacrificing security. They also highlight the absence of Anthropic’s Claude model and the Pentagon’s effort to work with other companies following its dispute with the frontier lab. Anthropic was labeled a supply-chain risk by the Trump administration — a designation that it is currently fighting in court — after it refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted use of its AI tools and instead insisted on certain safety guardrails.
ChatGPT Mil, which came out of the company’s OpenAI for Government program, will offer an experience familiar to commercial ChatGPT users. The tool will focus on chat, files, projects, and custom GPTs, according to the Defense Department. The tool will also support document-heavy, routine unclassified work such as administrative tasks, logistics, planning, and policy. Other features will be added over time.
The Pentagon positioned Grok’s capabilities and potential uses in much broader and more militaristic terms.
“Starshield AI’s Grok for Government will provide the warfighter with immediate productivity gains, stronger knowledge continuity and more secure and efficient collaboration,” according to the Defense Department’s press release. (SpaceX’s Starshield AI is a secure satellite network that uses the company’s existing Starlink tech.)
The department added that Grok would allow its military “to execute missions faster and with greater precision across numerous operational contexts, ranging from market research analysis for acquisition professionals to supply-chain management for logisticians.”
The Pentagon has struck deals with a number of other tech companies in a bid to boost its AI capabilities, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Reflection AI.
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A group funded by Andreessen, Horowitz, and Brockman plans data center ads to sway midterms
3:14 PM PDT · August 31, 2026
A well-known, pro-AI super political action committee is behind a new group that plans to blast voters in key battleground states with ads advocating for data centers, several outlets are reporting.
That new group, called Build American AI, wants to convince citizens of the virtues of having data centers in their backyards. It says it is affiliated with Leading the Future (LTF), a super PAC heavily funded by VCs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, along with OpenAI President Greg Brockman.
Build American AI told Bloomberg it will focus its ads on Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin, where concerns about data centers have become a central theme in statewide elections. It said its ad budget is millions of dollars.
LTF launched with over $50 million in funding and has mostly used that money to donate to specific politicians, Politico reports. It supports candidates who advocate for AI, but it also works to oppose candidates who lobby against the technology, sources have told Politico.
LTF has become such a well-known, and not particularly beloved, force in AI-related election politics that OpenAI publicly distanced itself from it in a blog post in June.
“There have been questions around Leading the Future (LTF), which has received support from our President and co-founder, Greg Brockman, and his wife Anna,” OpenAI wrote. “OpenAI does not direct the activities of LTF, or have visibility into their operations.”
OpenAI also condemned some of LTF’s tactics, writing: “Groups that are advocating on AI should be clear about their policy views, be honest about whom they represent, and not use tactics like astroturfing that obscure the real choices facing policymakers and the public.” (Astroturfing means making a paid, organized campaign look like grassroots support.)
While LTF has gained attention in Silicon Valley, it is not the only super PAC pushing an AI agenda that is backed by big Valley names. Anthropic, for instance, is a known supporter of Public First Action, a group that backs AI regulation.
Meanwhile, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have been “spending on politics like no other” as The New York Times put it. By the outlet’s calculations, their venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz, is the biggest donor so far to the midterm elections, spending more than high-profile donors like Elon Musk and George Soros. The firm has spread over $115 million around so far in disclosed federal contributions. In addition to LTF and AI causes, it is also heavily supporting pro-crypto efforts, especially through the crypto super PAC Fairshake.
Topics
Andreessen Horowitz, Government & Policy, greg brockman, Venture
