Two companies that announced a high-profile partnership in 2024 to bring ChatGPT into Apple's own products are now suing each other in federal court. On Friday, July 10, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the ChatGPT maker of running a systematic campaign to steal Apple's trade secrets through more than 400 former Apple employees now working at the company. Apple's own language in the filing does not hedge. "At every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple's trade secrets and confidential information," the company wrote.

A Partnership That Just Became a Lawsuit

The backdrop makes this filing feel less sudden than it looks. In May 2025, OpenAI acquired io Products, a hardware startup co-founded by former Apple chief design officer Jony Ive, in a deal reported at roughly 6.4 to 6.5 billion dollars, signaling OpenAI's intent to build its own consumer devices rather than remain purely a software and model company. Ive now leads OpenAI's hardware efforts, though notably he is not named as a defendant in Apple's lawsuit. The people who are named tell a more pointed story: Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI's current chief hardware officer and a co-founder of io Products, who previously served as Apple's vice president of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch, and Chang Liu, a former senior systems electrical engineer who spent eight years at Apple before joining OpenAI's San Francisco office in January 2026.

OpenAI's response was flat denial. "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets," a company spokesperson said in a statement. "We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere." That denial sits directly against a complaint built around specific, named individuals and detailed alleged conduct, not a general accusation of talent poaching.

The Laptop That Didn't Come Back

The most concrete allegation in the filing involves Chang Liu. According to Apple's complaint, Liu failed to return at least one Apple-issued laptop after leaving the company, did not respond to requests for an exit interview, and never confirmed he had returned all of his company devices. Apple alleges Liu used that laptop to download confidential technical documents covering unannounced technologies, features, and products, including engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data.

Apple's complaint goes further, alleging that after Liu left, he stayed in regular contact with Yu-Ting "Alyssa" Peng, an Apple employee who had not yet departed. Over roughly four months, Apple claims, Liu received a steady stream of confidential information from Peng about ongoing Apple projects, and when Peng eventually interviewed at OpenAI herself, Liu allegedly coached her on which specific proprietary materials to study beforehand, reportedly aware that OpenAI would value the information and that it was likely to help secure her a job offer. Peng subsequently joined OpenAI as well.

The Interview Trick Apple Says Was Deliberate

The allegations against Tang Tan describe a different kind of misconduct, one built into OpenAI's own hiring process rather than around a single departing employee. Apple's complaint claims Tan used the company's internal project codenames during interviews with prospective hires who still worked at Apple, a tactic apparently designed to prompt candidates into revealing more than they otherwise would have, simply by demonstrating that the interviewer already seemed to know insider terminology. Apple further alleges candidates were told to bring "actual parts," including batteries, logic boards, and system-in-package components, for what the complaint characterizes as "show and tell" during interviews.

Perhaps the most damaging specific claim is that Tan circulated an internal Apple document titled "Need to Know," originally related to Apple's own offboarding procedures, and used it to coach incoming OpenAI hires on how to evade Apple's exit security checks when they left. If that allegation holds up under scrutiny, it describes something considerably more deliberate than employees simply carrying general industry knowledge from one job to the next. It describes a hiring manager allegedly using a former employer's own internal security playbook to help new recruits get around it.

Why 400 Is the Number That Matters

Apple's own filing acknowledges that more than 400 former Apple employees currently work at OpenAI, adding, almost defensively, that it is "not surprising" some of them retain knowledge of confidential Apple information. That framing matters, because Apple is not arguing that hiring former employees is itself the problem. Ordinary employee movement between competing tech companies happens constantly and is generally legal. Apple's argument is narrower and more specific: that OpenAI's leadership, up to and including its chief hardware officer, actively directed the extraction of protected information rather than simply benefiting from employees who happened to already know things.

That is a meaningfully higher bar for Apple to clear in court, and it is also why the specific allegations, the retained laptop, the interview coaching, the offboarding document, matter so much more to this case than the headline 400-person figure alone.

What Apple Is Actually Asking the Court to Do

Beyond damages, Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction that would require the named defendants to preserve all relevant evidence, cease using any of Apple's allegedly misappropriated technology, and return all confidential materials. An injunction along those lines, if granted, could meaningfully slow OpenAI's hardware ambitions at the exact moment the company is reportedly furthest along in bringing a consumer device to market. Apple also says it sent OpenAI a letter back in February raising these same concerns directly and received no response, a detail included specifically to show the company attempted resolution before resorting to litigation.

The Timing That Makes This Worse for OpenAI

This lawsuit does not land in isolation. It arrives roughly two months after OpenAI won a separate high-profile trial against Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, in which a federal jury found Musk had waited too long to sue over claims that OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit structure. It also arrives while OpenAI is reportedly preparing for what could be a landmark initial public offering, a moment when investors scrutinize legal exposure especially closely. A trade secret lawsuit naming the company's own chief hardware officer, filed by one of the most litigious and well-resourced companies in the world, is not the kind of headline any company wants circulating during IPO preparations. Whether Apple's specific allegations hold up in court remains to be tested, but the reputational cost of the filing itself has already landed.