Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the Northern District of California, alleging a months-long scheme to steal confidential information and trade secrets.
The complaint states directly that “this case is about Apple’s former employees stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI,” signaling an aggressive legal posture from the iPhone maker.
Apple further accuses OpenAI of engaging in a “coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level,” directed by the company’s own senior leadership.
Central to the lawsuit is OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as VP of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch.
Apple alleges Tan used confidential Apple project code names during OpenAI’s recruiting process and asked job candidates to bring Apple hardware components to their interviews.
Tan is also accused of coaching departing Apple employees on how to evade the company’s security procedures and soliciting details about unannounced Apple products.
After his departure, Tan allegedly retained an internal Apple managers’ document marked “Need to Know,” which described security procedures for employee departures.
Apple also names Chang Liu, a former senior systems electrical engineer who spent eight years at the company before leaving for OpenAI in 2026, in the complaint.
Liu allegedly failed to return an Apple-issued laptop and used it to download confidential technical documents, including specifications, engineering presentations, and proprietary project data.
Liu is further accused of sharing that confidential information with other Apple employees who were applying for jobs at OpenAI and advising at least one of them on what to study before their interview.
Apple alleges OpenAI used its confidential hardware information when approaching Apple suppliers, and reportedly tricked one company into using a “specific trade secret metal-finishing technique” by falsely claiming Apple had granted permission.
The complaint warns that Apple’s current knowledge is limited, stating: “This is the tip of the iceberg. Apple lacks visibility into what’s been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership.”
Apple says it sent a letter to OpenAI in February raising these concerns but received no response from the company.
Facing mounting pressure to deliver its first consumer hardware product, OpenAI “resorted to taking unlawful shortcuts,” according to Apple’s complaint, which adds that OpenAI’s hardware business “now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.”
The lawsuit also references io, the device startup founded by Apple’s former lead designer Jony Ive, which OpenAI acquired in a $6.5 billion deal to support its hardware ambitions, though Ive himself was not named in the filing.
Apple is seeking damages, injunctions, and a court order compelling OpenAI to cease all use of its misappropriated trade secrets.
The legal action marks a dramatic reversal from the companies’ 2024 partnership, in which Apple had agreed to integrate ChatGPT into Siri, though Apple’s latest Siri is now powered by Google’s AI instead.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
