Apple's lawsuit filing accuses OpenAI and two ex employees of stealing trade secrets for its secretive AI hardware device. Here's what the suit claims.
Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI, filed Friday in a California federal court, accuses the ChatGPT maker of building its secretive hardware project on trade secrets stolen by two former Apple employees. The apple lawsuit filing marks a sharp turn for a company Apple once treated as a partner in its own AI ambitions.
The filing describes what Apple calls a coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level, language that goes well beyond a routine personnel dispute. Apple wants the court to stop OpenAI from using any information it says was taken, and it names two individuals alongside the company itself as defendants.
Who Apple Is Accusing
The two former Apple employees named in the suit are Tang Tan and Chang Liu. Tan spent years helping design the iPhone, Apple Watch and iPod before leaving to become OpenAI's chief hardware officer. Liu was an electrical engineer who, according to Apple, had access to some of the company's most sensitive product development work before departing for OpenAI earlier this year.
Apple's complaint claims Liu downloaded confidential hardware files onto an Apple issued device he kept after leaving the company. It also alleges Tan told job candidates still employed at Apple to bring actual parts from Apple to their interviews at OpenAI, a detail that, if proven, would suggest the alleged leaks went beyond documents and into physical components.
What OpenAI Is Building
OpenAI has never disclosed exactly what device it is working on. The company has only said it wants to find a new way for people to interact with AI, one that moves past screens and traditional interfaces. That framing echoes a decade old ambition, dating back to when Amazon and Google put screen free speakers into millions of homes.
Apple's lawsuit argues that ambition rests on a shaky footing. The filing states that OpenAI's hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core because of what Apple calls illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets. Apple says it began investigating in February, after which it reached out to OpenAI with its concerns, but says the company never responded.
An Apple spokesperson said Friday the company will always defend its teams' hard work and innovations and is taking all appropriate steps to do so. OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
From Partner to Rival
The relationship between the two companies started out cooperative. Apple turned to OpenAI a few years ago after finding itself behind in the AI race that ChatGPT had touched off. In 2024 the companies struck a deal letting ChatGPT act as an answer engine on the iPhone whenever Siri couldn't handle a request on its own.
That arrangement has since curdled into something closer to competition. OpenAI brought on former Apple design chief Jony Ive to lead a hardware project that analysts believe could eventually compete directly with Apple's own devices. Last year OpenAI acquired io Products, a company Ive co-founded along with Tan and two others, in a deal valued at nearly 6.5 billion dollars.
A Tangle of Related Litigation
The io Products deal has already spawned legal trouble. A separate startup called iyO Inc. sued Ive and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman over trademark infringement, citing the similar sounding name and past dealings between the firms. iyO also sued one of its own former employees for allegedly leaking a confidential drawing of its unreleased product, and later added trade secret claims against Tan to that same lawsuit.
Apple's new suit names io Products as a defendant too, adding another layer to litigation that already touches several of the same people and the same disputed hardware ambitions. Lawyers previously representing io Products and Tan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Timing That Raises the Stakes
The lawsuit lands as OpenAI weighs a possible move toward going public and contends with intensifying competition from Anthropic and Google. OpenAI trimmed some side projects earlier this year to focus on ChatGPT, but its hardware plans survived that cut. Chief financial officer Sarah Friar told The Associated Press in April that consumer hardware would arrive toward the end of the year.
Where This Leaves the Device Plans
Whether OpenAI's hardware timeline holds now depends partly on how quickly a federal court can sort through Apple's claims. Neither company has said whether the dispute will affect the device Friar promised for later this year, leaving that question open for now.
