Key Points
- Apple sued OpenAI on July 10 in California federal court, alleging trade-secret theft.
- The suit names OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan and engineer Chang Liu, both former Apple employees.
- Apple alleges a retained laptop, confidential code names, and coaching to evade security checks.
- Apple seeks damages and an injunction barring OpenAI from using its trade secrets.
Apple has taken OpenAI to court. In a lawsuit filed July 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple accuses the ChatGPT maker of a "coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level" to steal trade secrets and accelerate its own unreleased AI hardware, TechCrunch reported.
The complaint centers on two former Apple employees now at OpenAI. Tang Tan — OpenAI's chief hardware officer, who spent 24 years at Apple as a VP of product design across the iPhone and Apple Watch — allegedly used Apple's confidential project code names during recruiting, asked job candidates to bring Apple hardware components to interviews, and coached departing Apple staff on how to evade the company's security procedures. Chang Liu, a senior electrical engineer who spent eight years at Apple, allegedly kept a work-issued laptop after leaving, downloaded confidential technical documents, and messaged a former colleague still at Apple: "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny."
Apple is asking the court to bar OpenAI from using or disclosing the trade secrets, order the return of confidential materials, preserve evidence, and pay damages. OpenAI had not issued a public response as of filing.
The read is in the timeline. Two years ago Apple and OpenAI were partners, folding ChatGPT into Siri in a marquee 2024 deal. Since then the relationship has curdled: Apple rebuilt Siri on Google's Gemini, and both companies are now racing to define AI's next hardware form factor — OpenAI on a Jony Ive-designed device, Apple on camera-equipped AirPods and beyond. A trade-secrets suit is Apple treating that device race as an existential fight, and doing it in court. It also lands as OpenAI, fresh off confidentially filing for an IPO, faces the kind of discovery it would rather avoid.
Source: TechCrunch, CNBC
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