OpenAI poaching is too aggressive—Apple sues! Even with pay raises for more than 400 employees, they can’t keep them.

Apple filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on July 10, 2026, accusing OpenAI of systematically stealing trade secrets to build its own consumer hardware. The two main defendants are both former Apple employees. The lawsuit reveals that more than 400 Apple employees have already joined OpenAI; the poaching targets range from product design, displays, and antennas to the supply chain and hardware procurement.
(Background: OpenAI allegedly plans to sue Apple for “breach”! Furious over Siri integrating ChatGPT falling short of expectations, and a billion-dollar subscription deal coming to nothing)
(Additional context: A leak of OpenAI’s first AI hardware product—smart speakers that can recognize faces, observe, and help you buy things, slated for release as early as early 2027)

Table of contents

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• Raises and promotions can’t keep them
• Top hunter Tang Tan, building hardware with OpenAI
• Two months of shifting roles between offense and defense

Key takeaways

• On July 10, Apple sued OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging OpenAI systematically stole trade secrets to build consumer hardware
• The complaint says more than 400 Apple employees have joined OpenAI, and Tang Tan, the hardware chief, is cited as the top recruiter
• Apple previously offered iPhone engineers $200k to $400k in four-year stock bonuses to retain them, but it still couldn’t beat OpenAI’s reported stock package of about $1 million per year

Two months ago, OpenAI said it would sue Apple, and two months later it sat in the defendant’s seat. On July 10, 2026, Apple filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing OpenAI of launching a “systemic theft of trade secrets at every level,” taking Apple’s confidential information to build its own consumer hardware. The filing names two key defendants, both former senior Apple employees, including OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan and former Apple senior systems electrical engineer Chang Liu.

Apple says Chang Liu, before resigning, accessed and downloaded dozens of internal files marked as confidential, and after leaving still hadn’t returned the company-issued laptops. As for Tang Tan, Apple alleges that in OpenAI’s recruiting process he directly brought out Apple’s confidential project codes, requiring candidates to “show” Apple hardware parts to bring to interviews, even advising departing employees on how to evade Apple’s security checks, and also asking about product details that had not yet been released.

Raises and promotions can’t keep them

Behind this lawsuit is a talent war between Apple and OpenAI that has been going on for months. The complaint states that more than 400 Apple employees now work at OpenAI, and the departments being poached span product design, displays, antennas, the supply chain, and hardware procurement—nearly every stage of hardware development.

As the number of people switching jobs climbed into the hundreds, Apple began raising pay and adding responsibilities for the employees being targeted, trying to keep them. According to Bloomberg, earlier this year Apple unusually offered iPhone hardware engineers about $200,000 to $400k in four-year stock bonuses; employees had to stay to fully vest. The problem is that stock packages offered by companies like OpenAI are reportedly as high as about $1 million per year, making Apple’s retention incentives less competitive by comparison. Even with pay raises and promotions, people still left—this is not an easy battle for Apple to fight.

Top hunter Tang Tan, building hardware with OpenAI

Tang Tan, regarded by Apple as the top recruiter, spent nearly 25 years at Apple. Before leaving, he was the Vice President of Product Design for iPhone and Apple Watch, and a key figure in the hardware team. Now he runs OpenAI’s hardware division, overseeing the preparation of an entire AI device product line, including smart speakers without screens, glasses, recording devices, and wearable brooches.

The origin of this hardware line is exactly what Apple cares most about. In May 2025, OpenAI announced the acquisition of hardware company io Products, founded by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive, to bolster its design capabilities for consumer devices. To Apple, the talent it cultivated and the secrets it guarded for years are now helping a potential rival build hardware from scratch.

Two months of shifting roles between offense and defense

Interestingly, the order in which these former allies eventually tore things apart was the reverse of what it used to be. Back in May this year, after ChatGPT connected to Siri and the results fell far short of expectations, OpenAI considered suing Apple for breach. OpenAI originally expected the partnership to bring in tens of billions of dollars in annual subscription revenue, and it also wanted ChatGPT to appear more prominently in more Apple apps and take a more visible position in Siri—but none of that materialized. OpenAI even sought options from outside law firms to assess whether to issue breach notices, but ultimately chose not to take action.

Two months later, the roles reversed, and Apple became the one suing.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Apple suing OpenAI?

Apple accuses OpenAI of systematically stealing trade secrets, using large-scale recruiting of former Apple employees to obtain confidential information such as product design, displays, antennas, and the supply chain, which it then allegedly used to build its own AI consumer hardware. The complaint names hardware chief Tang Tan and former engineer Chang Liu as the main defendants, and says more than 400 Apple employees have joined OpenAI.

What hardware products is OpenAI developing?

OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan is preparing an entire AI device product line, including screenless smart speakers, glasses, recording devices, and wearable brooches. This product line comes from the May 2025 acquisition of io Products, co-founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive.