Apple took legal action against OpenAI on Friday, accusing the maker of ChatGPT of stealing confidential trade secrets as the AI company works to develop its own hardware — a significant breakdown in what had been a working partnership between the two tech giants.
The lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, alleges that the theft was part of what Apple described as a “coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level” by OpenAI.
“This case is about Apple’s former employees stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI,” the court filing states. “Apple brings this suit to put a stop to it.”
Two former Apple employees who are now on OpenAI’s payroll are listed as defendants in the case. The first is Tang Tan, who played a role in designing the iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPod and now serves as OpenAI’s chief hardware officer. The second is Chang Liu, a former electrical engineer whom Apple says was trusted with some of its most sensitive product development work before he left to join OpenAI earlier this year.
OpenAI had not responded to requests for comment as of the time of this report.
While OpenAI has not publicly disclosed the exact nature of the device it is developing, the company has described the project as an effort to create a new way for people to interact with artificial intelligence — one that moves beyond what it calls “traditional products and interfaces.” The initiative is part of a broader industry push to give AI a physical presence, coming roughly a decade after Amazon and Google brought voice-activated speakers into households across the country.
Apple’s lawsuit contends that this hardware effort was built, at least in part, on information taken illegally from Apple.
“OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” the lawsuit reads.
According to Apple, an internal investigation revealed a pattern of theft involving former employees who went on to work at OpenAI. The company alleges that both Liu and Tan accessed private Apple files and information while already employed by OpenAI. Specifically, Apple claims Liu downloaded several confidential hardware-related documents onto an Apple-issued device he kept after leaving the company. Apple also alleges that Tan instructed job candidates — who were still Apple employees at the time — to bring “actual parts” from Apple to their OpenAI interviews.
Apple says it first contacted OpenAI in February to flag its concerns, but the company never received a reply.
In a statement released Friday, an Apple spokesperson said the company will “always defend our teams’ hard work and innovations, and we are taking all appropriate steps to do so.”
