Apple sued OpenAI and io Products on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging in a 41-page complaint that OpenAI’s hardware ambitions are, in Apple’s phrasing, “rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.” The filing names two individual defendants: OpenAI Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran who ran product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, and Chang Liu, an 8-year Apple systems electrical engineer who joined OpenAI in 2026.

The specifics are unusually operational. According to the complaint, Tan directed Apple employees interviewing at OpenAI to bring hardware components with them for “show and tell sessions,” and coached departing staff on how to evade Apple’s exit-security procedures. Liu, the filing claims, never returned his Apple-issued laptop and used it to download confidential technical documents. A proprietary Apple metal-finishing technique allegedly ended up in OpenAI’s supply chain after a vendor was misled about Apple’s authorization.

Apple says it sent OpenAI a warning letter in February and got no response.

“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 complaint states. An OpenAI spokesperson rejected the framing: “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets.”

The suit’s timing is the story beneath the story. OpenAI is preparing an IPO, having paid $6.4 billion last year for io Products, the hardware firm co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive. Apple, meanwhile, hands the CEO role from Tim Cook to John Ternus in September. Trade-secret litigation between Silicon Valley giants tends to arrive precisely when one side’s narrative needs disciplining and the other’s succession needs a signal. This one arrives at both.

Sources