Apple filed suit against OpenAI on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the company’s chief hardware officer and a former engineer of funneling confidential Apple product information into OpenAI’s device push. The complaint alleges trade secret theft and breach of contract. Nothing in it has been proven, and OpenAI has not conceded any of the underlying claims. Apple is asking a federal judge to decide where confidentiality obligations end and a rival’s hiring pipeline begins.
Central to the complaint is Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, who spent 24 years at Apple before leaving, most recently as vice president of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple alleges Tan used the company’s internal project code names during OpenAI recruiting conversations, asked job candidates to bring Apple hardware components to their interviews, and coached departing Apple staff on how to evade Apple’s security procedures.
The filing also names Chang Liu, an eight-year Apple systems electrical engineer who left for OpenAI in 2026. Apple says Liu never returned a company-issued laptop and used it to download confidential technical documents, including specifications, engineering presentations, and proprietary project data tied to unannounced products. Liu is separately accused of coaching other Apple employees applying to OpenAI on what to study before their interviews.
Apple says it sent OpenAI a letter raising these concerns in February and received no response. That gap, as described in the complaint, is part of why Apple moved to litigation instead of a private resolution.
The lawsuit lands as OpenAI works on what would be its first hardware product. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in April the device could be a smartphone built around AI agents instead of traditional apps, a category that would compete directly with the iPhone. OpenAI acquired Jony Ive’s device startup io for $6.5 billion last year to build out that hardware effort. io is named in Apple’s filing. Ive is not.
Apple’s complaint extends past recruiting practices. It alleges OpenAI and its manufacturing partners used Apple’s confidential information while developing OpenAI’s own hardware, citing a proprietary metal finishing technique OpenAI allegedly obtained after misleading a partner into believing it had Apple’s permission. If that claim holds up in discovery, it ties the trade secret dispute to the physical design of OpenAI’s device, not just to how OpenAI staffed the project.
The filing calls the known conduct “the tip of the iceberg,” arguing OpenAI’s nascent hardware business rests on foundations built from misappropriated trade secrets. OpenAI’s public response, posted to X after TechCrunch’s initial report, denied wrongdoing: “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”
This is, at its core, a talent-mobility fight wearing a trade secrets label. California bars noncompete agreements, so trade secret law is the main lever companies retain over what departing engineers carry into a competitor’s hardware program. An injunction barring OpenAI from using the disputed material could stall design decisions on the reported device for months, since these cases typically demand a sworn accounting of which specifications shaped which choices.
For anyone tracking OpenAI’s hardware timeline, discovery is now the thing to watch. Subpoenaed engineering records could reveal how far along the device actually is, independent of what either company has said in public.
Reporting by Sarah Perez for TechCrunch, published July 10, 2026.
