Silicon Valley giants turn against each other! Apple sues OpenAI for stealing trade secrets, demanding the destruction of sensitive materials and a redesign of AI hardware.

Apple Files Lawsuit Against OpenAI, Accusing the AI Startup and Its Head of Hardware of Systematically Stealing Trade Secrets; the Relationship Between the Two Former Partners Has Now Been Completely Ruptured

On Friday, Apple filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing OpenAI of intentionally prompting Apple employees to leak information related to unreleased products, components, schematics, and other materials, in order to support its plans to develop its own hardware devices.

The complaint also specifically names OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan—who previously served as Apple’s Vice President of Product Design and led development work for core hardware products including the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods.

Apple is asking OpenAI to immediately stop the alleged conduct, destroy all proprietary materials involved, and redesign the upcoming products to ensure they contain no Apple technology.

The lawsuit is expected to have a profound impact on the direction of the collaboration between the two companies. OpenAI has long provided key technical support for Apple’s Apple Intelligence platform and the Siri voice assistant, and the two sides’ partnership was formally announced two years ago at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

But now, the tension between the two sides has continued to escalate—from large-scale employee departures to intellectual property disputes—turning Silicon Valley’s most watched AI hardware race into a head-on legal conflict.

Core allegations: Organized theft of trade secrets

Apple’s complaint uses strong language, accusing OpenAI—from technical personnel to the Chief Hardware Officer of:

"At every level, and in concert with business partners, continuously stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information."

Apple also further said that, “OpenAI’s fledgling hardware business is therefore built on the most fragile foundation, its core corrupted by acts of illegally appropriating trade secrets.”

The complaint specifically alleges that Tang Tan actively encouraged Apple employees to provide information about unreleased products during recruitment and interview processes, and it also names iPhone hardware engineer Chang Liu.

According to the allegations, Liu joined OpenAI this January, and in the following weeks “secretly accessed and downloaded dozens of Apple confidential hardware files, including extensive detailed information on unreleased products, engineering demonstration materials, technical specifications, and proprietary project data.”

Apple also disclosed an even more serious allegation: OpenAI is accused of systematically instructing departing employees on how to evade the company’s security procedures.

The complaint states that OpenAI advised departing employees not to disclose the name of their next employer, and taught them how to avoid triggering a “headache-inducing direct send-off” procedure—meaning they were immediately escorted out of the company—so that they could continue accessing Apple’s confidential information and trade secrets within the standard two-week notice period.

Apple said that it previously attempted to resolve the dispute outside of court, asking OpenAI to stop the conduct and destroy the materials involved, but received no response, forcing it to pursue legal action.

Tang Tan: From an Apple design executive to a key figure at OpenAI

Tang Tan is one of the key defendant figures in this case, and his career path reflects the severity of Apple’s talent drain.

In 2024, he left Apple and, together with Apple’s former Chief Design Officer Jony Ive and veteran Apple design executive Evans Hankey, co-founded an AI hardware startup called io Products.

OpenAI later acquired the company last year for $6.5 billion, and Tang Tan became OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer. Notably, Ive and Hankey are not listed as defendants in this lawsuit.

The wave of Apple employees moving to OpenAI goes beyond this. The complaint shows that more than 400 former Apple employees are currently working at OpenAI. Just last month, the top executive responsible for Apple’s smart glasses business also announced his departure to join OpenAI, further intensifying Apple’s concerns about talent.

Breakdown of the partnership: From strategic partner to courtroom adversary

The relationship between Apple and OpenAI was once regarded as Silicon Valley’s most iconic AI strategic alliance. Two years ago at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, OpenAI CEO Altman personally attended the event in person to observe it, and Apple software executive Craig Federighi publicly praised the startup as an “pioneer and market leader” in the AI field.

The two sides’ collaboration spanned multiple areas: users can call on ChatGPT’s answers directly in Siri, and iPhone’s “visual intelligence” feature can generate text and analyze objects around the user. Apple later also plans to integrate ChatGPT into the Image Playground image-creation app and support analysis of screen content.

However, this relationship has since deteriorated sharply. OpenAI once considered taking legal action against Apple, believing that the partnership had failed to deliver the expected commercial benefits, and it evaluated the possibility of sending a notice of breach of contract to Apple.

Now, the situation has been completely reversed. As both companies bet on the next battlefield of AI hardware, tech giants including Apple, OpenAI, and Meta are competing for an entry point widely seen as the “post-smartphone era.”

Apple is accelerating its plans for multiple new form-factor devices, including smart glasses, smart pendants, and AirPods equipped with cameras, while OpenAI’s hardware ambitions have directly become the trigger for this legal battle.

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