Apple Files Major Trade Secret Lawsuit Against OpenAI Over Alleged Hardware Theft
Apple sues OpenAI trade secrets
In a dramatic rupture of their long-standing partnership, Apple filed a lawsuit on Friday, July 10, 2026, in a Northern California federal court accusing OpenAI of orchestrating a campaign to steal trade secrets to accelerate its entry into the consumer hardware market. The complaint alleges that OpenAI leveraged confidential information regarding Apple’s unreleased technologies, engineering processes, and product designs to build its own competing hardware devices.
Core Allegations
The lawsuit centers on the recruitment and activities of two former Apple employees who now work for OpenAI:
Tang Tan: A former Apple vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, now serving as OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer. Apple alleges that Tan directed efforts to extract confidential information, including instructing job candidates to bring “actual parts” from Apple to interviews for “show and tell” sessions.
Chang Liu: A former electrical engineer entrusted with highly sensitive product development programs. The complaint alleges that Liu exploited a previously unknown authentication bug to access and download dozens of confidential hardware-related files from Apple’s network storage after he had already joined OpenAI.
Apple’s filing claims that OpenAI’s hardware program—developed in collaboration with io Products—is “rotten to its core” by its illegal reliance on misappropriated intellectual property.
The Relationship Unravels
This legal battle marks a sharp reversal for the two tech giants, which announced a landmark partnership in 2024 to integrate ChatGPT into Apple’s operating systems.
Tensions began to simmer as OpenAI expanded into hardware—evidenced by its $6.4 billion acquisition of io Products—and Apple pivoted its strategy, recently announcing that its revamped Siri would favor Google’s Gemini AI.
In response to the lawsuit, an OpenAI spokesperson stated, “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere”. Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the defendants from using its confidential information, the return of its property, and damages for what it describes as OpenAI’s “unlawful shortcuts”.
