Apple's OpenAI Suit Omits Its Biggest Defector
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- Apple filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of orchestrating a campaign to recruit Apple engineers, extract confidential information, and use trade secrets to jump-start its own hardware ambitions.
- Masimo sued Apple in 2020 alleging Apple hired away its top pulse oximetry experts and used their know-how for the Apple Watch blood oxygen sensor; a 2025 federal jury ordered Apple to pay $634 million for patent infringement, and an ITC-imposed Apple Watch import ban from 2023 was later overturned.
- A123 Systems made similar accusations that Apple systematically recruited its advanced battery team, including its former chief technology officer; the case settled before trial.
- Apple entered a secret 2000s-era no-poaching pact with five other tech giants, including Google and Intel, and the companies paid more than $400 million to settle a class action, per The New York Times.
- Jony Ive, Apple's former iPhone designer, left in 2019 to start io Products; OpenAI acquired io last year and brought on Ive and his team to develop a consumer gadget that the source says 'may challenge the iPhone.'
- Apple's 40-page lawsuit names only two former Apple employees now at OpenAI — Tang Tan and Chang Liu — and references Ive only in URL footnotes, a notable gap the author flags as 'odd.'
- The author frames the suit as 'a rare example of a Silicon Valley tech giant being challenged at its own game,' concluding that 'today's plaintiff is often yesterday's defendant.'
Why it matters: Apple has faced the same trade-secret accusations it's now leveling at OpenAI, including a $634 million Masimo patent loss and a $400 million no-poach settlement with Google and Intel. The 40-page complaint's omission of Jony Ive — Apple's most prominent defector — fits a pattern the source describes as 'today's plaintiff is often yesterday's defendant.'
