Apple Sues OpenAI Over Alleged Hardware Secret Theft
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- Apple sued OpenAI, IO Products (Jony Ive's hardware startup acquired by OpenAI in 2025), and two named employees — Tang Tan and Chang Liu — alleging a "pattern of theft" of hardware trade secrets to benefit OpenAI's hardware business.
- Chang Liu is accused of accessing Apple's systems after his employment ended and downloading "dozens" of confidential hardware files on unreleased products, and instructing a former Apple colleague to copy files and communicate via Line Messenger to avoid detection.
- Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer, allegedly emailed Apple supplier information to himself before leaving and solicited confidential details while interviewing Apple employees for OpenAI roles.
- OpenAI allegedly instructed Apple staffers to bring "CAD/design artifacts" and "prototypes" to job interviews, and an Apple industrial-design partner was allegedly recruited to perform Apple's proprietary metal-finishing processes for OpenAI's benefit.
- Apple claims more than 400 former employees now work at OpenAI; the company accuses OpenAI of advising departing staffers to flag any documents Apple asks them to sign, and says OpenAI ignored a February outreach raising these concerns.
- OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told The Verge "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets," and Apple's complaint casts OpenAI's hardware business as "rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets."
Why it matters: With OpenAI's first hardware product expected next year and Apple casting the business as "rotten to its core" by alleged trade secret theft, the suit attacks the foundation of OpenAI's device launch. Apple names 400+ former employees now at OpenAI and alleges systematic extraction through interviews, supplier poaching, and partner recruitment — well beyond a single rogue engineer.
