Suits

Corporate espionage? A work laptop is probably the worst place to do it. 

Apple ($AAPL) claims former senior engineer Chang Liu took its trade secrets to OpenAI in January. Liu allegedly failed to return an Apple laptop and downloaded ‘dozens’ of confidential files. Now, the US$4.6T tech giant is taking the ChatGPT maker to court over it.

The lawsuit also names OpenAI’s current chief of hardware and 24-year Apple veteran, Tang Tan, alleging he’s been using insider information to benefit OpenAI.

It’s no secret that OpenAI is trying to break into consumer hardware, acquiring ‘io Products’ for US$6.5B in May 2025. The startup, also named in the suit, was co-founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive.

All this means that the Apple-OpenAI partnership is officially dead. And it’s now clear why Apple is turning to Alphabet’s ($GOOGL) Gemini models to power its next-gen models. The suit didn’t deter investors from buying this week. $AAPL hit a new record high and rose 17% over the last ten trading sessions, adding US$688B to its market cap. 

There’s a lot to like about the only Mag7 member that isn’t burning cash on data centres yet – unlike Meta ($META), which just revealed its Hyperion data centre in Louisiana will be even more expensive than originally planned.

With a US$50B price tag, the joint venture with Blue Owl Capital ($OWL) is the world’s largest data centre project. It will scale up to 5 GW of compute capacity and will need power levels equal to half of New York City. 

Meanwhile Meta’s being sued by 26 former employees who claim the company used AI to factor productivity and token usage into layoff decisions, disproportionately hitting workers with health conditions.

Legal battles also made their way into the world of media mega-mergers this week. A group of state attorneys filed a lawsuit to block Paramount’s ($PSKY) acquisition of Warner Bros. ($WBD) over antitrust concerns. Delays will be a costly affair for Paramount, which is on the hook to pay a US$650M ‘ticking fee’ per quarter to $WBD shareholders if the deal isn't closed by 30 September. 

Every company’s court date is tied to a defining outcome. For now, the market still holds the gavel.

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Samy Sriram

Markets Analyst

Samy is a markets analyst at Stake, with seven years of experience in the world of investing, working across roles in private banking, venture capital and financial media. She has a Master’s degree in Finance and Data Analytics from The University of Sydney Business School.