Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in federal court on Friday, accusing the artificial intelligence giant of stealing trade secrets and confidential information. According to the suit, OpenAI's hardware chief — a former Apple executive — "directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring 'actual parts' from Apple" to interviews. The suit also alleges OpenAI coached employees on skirting security processes when leaving Apple. It's a "shocking reversal" for Apple and OpenAI, which have been partners since 2024, though "tensions have been growing for the past year," per Bloomberg.
The lawsuit also names io Products, the Jony Ive-led hardware startup acquired by OpenAI last year, as complicit in the trade secret theft. It doesn't mention IVE by name, but describes the organization as complicit in "a coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level" within OpenAI.
The filing also names Chang Liu, a former senior system electrical engineer at Apple, and Tang Yew Tan, a former Apple VP who is now OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer. Apple claims that both Liu and Tan shared trade secrets with OpenAI. Liu, according to Apple's lawyers, "surreptitiously accessed and downloaded dozens of Apple's confidential hardware-related files, including voluminous, detailed information about unreleased products, engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data."
Apple also claims that Tan "has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring 'actual parts' from Apple to their interviews for 'show and tell' sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information." In all, Apple says that more than 400 of its former employees have taken jobs at OpenAI and that the company's interview process if structured "to try to solicit additional confidential Apple information."
OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations. The company "never responded" when Apple reached out about its concerns, the lawsuit says. Drew Pusateri, OpenAI's director of strategic communications, tweeted that the company has "no interest in other companies' trade secrets" in reaction to the suit.
In the filing, Apple says that it's likely not aware of the full extent of OpenAI's misconduct. "This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple's trade secrets and confidential information," it says. "As a natural result, OpenAI's nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets."
The lawsuit comes as Apple is still partnering with OpenAI for Apple Intelligence. In a footnote, Apple says that its existing agreement, which allows the iPhone maker to integrate ChatGPT into its devices, "is not at issue here" and that its allegations of trade secret theft have "no connection" to the arrangement.
Apple Accuses OpenAI of Trade Secret Theft
Whoever files first shapes the narrative, defines the venue, and gets the first crack at discovery. The question worth watching is whether OpenAI’s contemplated breach claim ever surfaces as a counterclaim or gets quietly dropped.
Once you get past the timing question, the complaint itself is worth reading. It runs 41 pages and characterizes OpenAI’s conduct as a “coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level,” with defendants “acting in concert and as an enterprise.” That framing is aggressive for a trade secret case.
The actual counts tell a narrower story. There are four parallel DTSA claims and two IPA breach counts against the individual defendants, but no civil conspiracy count, no aiding and abetting, and no RICO.
Apple pleaded the story big and the theory small, probably to keep the preliminary injunction motion clean. Watch whether the coordination language becomes a standalone count on amendment.
Getting an existing Apple employee to take the risk of bringing parts to an interview seems more like a test of how desperate they are to work at OpenAI than anything else. Targeting Apple's supply chain is a declaration of war. And given that Apple fought Samsung for years over rounded corners, it is hardly surprising to see Apple listing metal finishing as an example of IP theft. The question here is how this gets settled, given that, unlike with Samsung, Apple is unlikely to be interested in cross-licensing anything from OpenAI.