Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the AI company of systematically stealing trade secrets through former Apple employees. The complaint targets Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple most recently as VP of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch, and Chang Liu, a former senior systems electrical engineer who spent eight years at Apple.
The lawsuit alleges that Tan used Apple's confidential project code names during OpenAI's recruiting process, instructed job candidates to bring Apple hardware components to interviews, coached departing employees on evading Apple's security procedures, and requested details about unannounced products. Liu is accused of failing to return an Apple-issued laptop and using it to download confidential technical documents including information about unannounced technologies, features, and products.
Apple sent OpenAI a letter in February raising its concerns but received no response. The company alleges this behavior is part of OpenAI's strategy to extract confidential information for its own hardware development, which OpenAI acquired Jony Ive's startup io for $6.5 billion last year to support. If true, the rumored OpenAI smartphone relying on AI agents instead of apps would represent a significant threat to Apple's core hardware business.