Apple filed a lawsuit Friday against OpenAI for alleged theft of privacy and breach of contract.
The iPhone maker says this misconduct, which reveals a pattern of theft from OpenAI employees who used to work at Apple, was directed by OpenAI’s senior leadership, including Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Tan of using Apple’s secret code words during the OpenAI hiring process, asking job seekers to bring Apple hardware components to their interviews, training outgoing Apple employees on how to circumvent the company’s security procedures, and asking for information about the company’s unspecified products.
Prior to joining OpenAI, Tan spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as VP of product development for the iPhone and Apple Watch.
The allegations come at a time when OpenAI is rumored to be developing its first hardware product, possibly to compete with the iPhone. In April, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that the device could be a smartphone that will rely on AI agents instead of apps. If true, it could be one of the biggest threats to Apple’s core business to date.
Apple’s top designer Jony Ive’s io device startup was acquired by OpenAI last year in a $6.5 billion deal to help the AI company with its hardware ambitions. While io was called in the file, Ive not.
Tan isn’t the only OpenAI employee targeted in the new complaint. Apple also alleged that Chang Liu, who spent eight years at Apple as a senior software engineer, failed to retrieve a laptop issued by Apple after he left the company at OpenAI in 2026 and used the computer to download Apple’s confidential documents.
Apple says in its filing that the stolen documents include information about unannounced technologies, features, and products, including technical specifications, engineering presentations, and proprietary project data.
Liu is also accused in the lawsuit of sharing confidential Apple information with other Apple employees applying for jobs at OpenAI, advising at least one of them on what to study before their interview.
Apple sent a letter to OpenAI in February to express its concerns, and it did not respond, the company said in the complaint.
The behavior of these former employees is alleged to be part of OpenAI’s strategy to extract confidential Apple information, including asking Apple employees to bring designs and prototypes to their interviews, and to answer questions about things like component and vendor selection processes.
Apple says its ongoing investigation revealed that OpenAI and its partners even used Apple’s confidential information while the AI model maker was building its own hardware product. For example, the filing points to how to complete a proprietary tool that OpenAI used after it misled a partner into believing it had Apple’s permission to do so.
Like many technology companies, Apple often investigates potential trade secret theft or other improper activity by analyzing communications that occur on the company’s devices and reading its server logs. By taking the case to court, Apple will have the opportunity to learn more about the extent of the alleged activity through the legal discovery process.
Apple is asking the court to prevent OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, to require the company to return any of Apple’s confidential materials, and to preserve evidence related to the case.
“This is the tip of the iceberg. Apple is not transparent about what has been going on behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such bad behavior is common and leadership has been demonstrated,” the filing said. “As a natural consequence, OpenAI’s fledgling hardware business now rests on a solid foundation, which has been severely damaged by its illegal reliance on unauthorized trade secrets.”
In a prepared statement, Apple also said:
“At Apple, our teams are constantly developing the technology to create the world’s best products and services, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take very seriously. Recently, significant evidence came to light suggesting that people employed by OpenAI improperly took Apple’s confidential and confidential information about our technology that has not been released. We are taking steps to do so.”
OpenAI has been contacted for comment.
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This story is developing and will be updated, and was originally published at 1:32pm PT.
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