Apple filed a federal lawsuit on July 10 against OpenAI for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets, a case that lays bare the fierce competition for talent and confidential information in the race for AI hardware.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that OpenAI executed a coordinated, institution-wide pattern of improper conduct to extract confidential hardware information from Apple. According to the filing cited by TechCrunch, OpenAI has hired more than 400 former Apple employees to build its hardware division. The relationship between the two companies dates to 2024, when they integrated ChatGPT into iPhones, but has deteriorated as OpenAI develops its own AI-powered devices. In 2025, OpenAI acquired io Products (the hardware startup of Jony Ive, Apple's former chief design officer) for approximately $6.5 billion, a transaction also referenced in the complaint.
The filing singles out two former Apple employees in particular. Tang Tan, OpenAI's current head of hardware and a 24-year Apple veteran, allegedly instructed job candidates to bring physical Apple components to their interviews as demonstrations, and also emailed himself supplier information before resigning. Chang Liu, an electrical engineer who joined OpenAI in January 2026, downloaded dozens of confidential files from Apple's systems after leaving the company without returning his corporate computer, according to The Verge. The complaint also accuses OpenAI of deceiving at least two Apple suppliers into replicating proprietary manufacturing processes.
Apple is seeking an injunction barring OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, along with damages and the return of confidential materials. OpenAI responded that it has no interest in anyone else's trade secrets. The case, which analysts have compared to the 2017 Waymo v. Uber litigation (settled for $245 million), according to Wired, tests the limits of talent mobility in Silicon Valley precisely as the industry enters the era of AI hardware.
This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.