Apple Sues OpenAI Over Stolen Hardware Secrets

Apple filed suit against OpenAI on Friday, July 10, 2026, alleging that former Apple employees now working at the ChatGPT maker stole trade secrets related to unreleased hardware technologies. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, names OpenAI's hardware subsidiary IO Products and two individual defendants: Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer, and Chang Liu, who joined OpenAI from Apple in January The Verge.

IO Products is OpenAI's hardware division, formed after the company acquired Jony Ive's design startup in 2025. Both Tan and Liu previously held senior hardware roles at Apple before moving to the new venture.

What Apple Says Happened

The complaint details specific allegations. According to Apple, Chang Liu accessed Apple's internal systems after leaving and downloaded dozens of confidential files — including engineering presentations, technical specifications, and details about unreleased projects The Verge. The lawsuit also alleges that Liu coached another former Apple employee on how to copy confidential files while avoiding detection by Apple's security systems, according to court documents.

Tan faces similar charges. Apple says he emailed supplier information to himself before leaving the company and requested confidential information from Apple employees during job interviews at OpenAI. More broadly, the suit claims that OpenAI instructed job candidates still working at Apple to bring CAD files (detailed computer design blueprints), design mockups, and physical prototypes to their interviews — which Apple characterizes as "coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level" rather than individual mistakes WFMY.

An Apple spokesperson said "significant evidence has emerged suggesting individuals employed by OpenAI wrongfully took Apple's secret and confidential information regarding unreleased technologies, processes, and products" The Verge. OpenAI has not provided detailed responses to the specific allegations as of publication.

The Institutional Question

The most striking part of Apple's complaint is its focus on systemic conduct. Apple is not just saying two employees misbehaved as they left — a scenario Silicon Valley courts encounter regularly in talent disputes. Instead, it alleges that OpenAI's hardware unit made a standard practice of asking job candidates to bring confidential materials, including CAD files and prototypes, to interviews. If proven, this shifts the case from individual misconduct to corporate responsibility, with much larger potential consequences for OpenAI and IO Products.

The broader context here matters. Apple has long treated its hardware development process — supplier relationships, design methods, unreleased product plans — as among the most closely guarded secrets in technology. The company has spent decades building walls around how it builds things. That OpenAI's new hardware division, staffed by people trained inside those walls, now faces allegations of systematic information theft carries a particular weight: Apple is saying the fortress was breached from inside.

Why This Is Harder Than It Looks

Trade secret lawsuits like this one face real obstacles in court. Judges must separate what an engineer legitimately knows from experience—the kind of general expertise someone can take to a new job—from specific documents or data that genuinely belong to the original employer. Apple's complaint focuses heavily on concrete evidence: specific files that were downloaded, emails that were sent, interview instructions documented in writing. That kind of tangible proof is harder to defend against than vague claims about stolen knowledge, which tend to collapse during trial.

The timing lands in a moment of broader competition. Apple has been adding third-party AI models to its software while also developing its own AI systems. OpenAI, conversely, is moving from software into physical products under Ive's leadership. A trade secret dispute in this context carries stakes that go well beyond the two employees named in the suit.

What comes next likely hinges on the discovery phase—when both sides exchange evidence and documents. Apple's complaint points to specific digital artifacts: file downloads, emails, interview instructions. That specificity, if it holds up under scrutiny, gives the case better odds than many technology trade secret disputes, where the boundary between an employee's accumulated skill and an employer's proprietary information is often too fuzzy to win in court.