Sebastiaan de With was reportedly dismissed due to financial impropriety prior to his employment with Apple.
Sebastiaan de With was reportedly dismissed due to financial impropriety prior to his employment with Apple.
Lux Optics co-founder Sebastiaan de With grabbed attention when he came on board with Apple in late January. The firm was associated with Halide, a highly regarded photography application for the iPhone, renowned for its comprehensive professional-grade controls.
Apple seemed to be such an admirer that it attempted to acquire the developer during the previous summer. Those discussions did not yield results, and ultimately, the company opted to hire de With instead. At the time, it was commonly thought that Apple had taken him from Lux. However, fresh allegations from a lawsuit instituted by co-founder Ben Sandofsky in the California Superior Court of Santa Cruz assert that de With was terminated for financial misconduct in December 2025.
According to The Information, the lawsuit “accuses de With of inappropriately utilizing over $150,000 in Lux corporate funds for personal expenditures,” and “removing Lux source code and confidential information when he transitioned to Apple.”
A lawyer representing de With refuted these accusations, stating that “The effort to involve Apple in this conflict seems intended to gain leverage and draw attention.”
