Apple has reached a settlement with a former employee who it says stole thousands of documents before departing for Snap.
The lawsuit was first filed by Apple in June 2025, with Apple saying engineer Di Liu stole a “massive volume” of trade secrets before departing the company for Snap.
In its lawsuit, Apple said that Liu failed to inform Apple he was leaving to work on another company’s product, and therefore “Liu was permitted to stay on at Apple for the standard two-week departure period rather than immediately losing access to Apple’s proprietary information.”
Three days before leaving the company, Apple said Liu downloaded thousands of Apple documents and subsequently uploaded them to his personal iCloud account.
Liu worked at Apple from September 2017 through November 2024, specifically focusing on hardware and design engineering for Apple Vision Pro. He left Apple for Snap, where he led optical engine, camera, and sensor integrations for seven months — leaving the company the same month Apple filed its lawsuit.
From the original lawsuit:
Mr. Liu gave his resignation from Apple at the end of October 2024. At the time, he told his colleagues he wanted to spend more time with his family and take care of his health. As a result, Apple allowed him to keep working—and maintain access to Apple’s Proprietary Information—for two more weeks.
A review of Mr. Liu’s Apple-issued work laptop showed that he was not honest about his stated reason for leaving Apple. Weeks before his departure, he negotiated a position with Snap Inc. (“Snap”), a maker of augmented reality (AR) glasses. He received an offer of employment on October 18, which means he waited nearly two weeks until October 30 to notify Apple that he was resigning from his position with Apple. And even then, he did not disclose he was leaving for Snap. Apple would not have allowed Mr. Liu continued access had he told the truth.
Worse still, the review of Mr. Liu’s Apple-issued work laptop also shows that while maintaining access to Apple’s Proprietary Information under false pretenses, he used his Apple credentials to exfiltrate thousands of documents containing Proprietary Information from Apple’s secure file storage systems.
On his final days as an Apple employee, he used his Apple-issued work laptop to copy more than a dozen folders containing thousands of files from a folder used for Apple work to his personal cloud storage account in a folder named “Personal” and a sub-folder within named “Knowledge.” These folders and files contain Apple’s Proprietary Information and have filenames containing confidential Apple product code names and are marked as Apple confidential, reflecting the confidential nature of the documents’ contents.
The case, which was filed in the Santa Clara County Superior Court in California, was dismissed this week following a settlement agreement between Liu and Apple.
“Mr. Liu has reached an agreement with Apple to resolve this matter by returning Apple confidential information in his possession and making a payment to Apple for monetary damages,” this week’s filing reads.
Liu also took to LinkedIn on Tuesday to post a public apology for “dumbly” downloading confidential information from Apple when departing the company. In the post, Liu wrote that he is “truly sorry for what occurred and the burdens caused to others.”
I wish to publicly apologize to Apple.
During my transition from Apple employment in November 2024, I dumbly downloaded Apple confidential information and materials to my iCloud Account. I deeply and genuinely regret this lapse in judgment, and I am truly sorry for what occurred and the burdens caused to others.
I respect Apple, the work I did there with great colleagues and friends, and the trust the company places in its employees.
I sincerely apologize to Apple and to my former colleagues for betraying their trust. This matters deeply to me. I accept responsibility for my actions.
This experience has taught me painful lessons, and the consequences have created significant impediments in both my personal life and my professional career. I am committed to moving forward with greater care, professionalism, and respect for the trust others place in me.
Apple is known to take swift legal action against former employees it believes have misappropriated trade secrets and other confidential information. This includes legal action against its former materials lead Simon Lancaster, chip engineers who left to form startup Rivos, a former Apple Car engineer who joined a Chinese self–driving car startup, and another Project Titan engineer who was jailed for stealing trade secrets.
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