Enterprise

Apple sues OpenAI over hardware trade secrets, clouding IPO and first-device launch

A 41-page complaint in Northern California accuses OpenAI's hardware chief Tang Tan and a former Apple engineer of extracting confidential product data as the AI company preps its debut consumer device.

By Asher Glick · Enterprise software desk · 2026-07-20 · 3 min read

Photo: Unsplash / Tingey Injury Law Firm — Wooden gavel resting on a legal desk

Apple sued OpenAI on July 10, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging in a 41-page complaint that OpenAI’s chief hardware officer Tang Tan and former Apple engineer Chang Liu orchestrated a systematic extraction of trade secrets from Cupertino ahead of OpenAI’s debut consumer device. The filing arrives less than two years after the two companies announced their 2024 partnership integrating ChatGPT into iPhone’s operating system, and it names io Products, the Jony Ive-founded design startup OpenAI acquired last year for $6.4 billion, as a co-defendant.

The complaint’s language is unusually direct. “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,” Apple writes. Per CNN, Liu allegedly downloaded dozens of confidential hardware-related files, including unreleased product details, engineering presentations, and technical specifications; Tan is accused of instructing job candidates to bring Apple parts to interviews. Apple is seeking injunctive relief, monetary damages, and declaratory judgments, according to Fortune.

OpenAI’s response is the standard denial. “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets,” spokesperson Drew Pusateri said, and the company told Bloomberg it’s “not aware of any evidence” the suit has merit.

The strategic reading writes itself. OpenAI’s first device, described by Bloomberg as a mobile, screen-free smart speaker built with input from former iPhone and Mac engineers, is expected to be unveiled later this year, and the company is preparing an IPO. Apple’s own updated Siri, now built on Google’s Gemini models rather than ChatGPT, is arriving this fall. The lawsuit lands precisely at the seam of both product launches.

Sean O’Kane, speaking on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, put the point plainly: the suit will “cause some delays in what OpenAI is working on,” which he suggested was likely part of Apple’s reasoning.

Trade-secret litigation between departing engineers and their former employers is a Silicon Valley genre unto itself, most memorably the Waymo v. Uber case that opened in 2017 and ended in a $245 million settlement a year later. That precedent is instructive not because the underlying facts rhyme, but because the outcome did what discovery timelines are designed to do: it slowed a competitor at the exact moment speed was the strategic asset. Apple is the incumbent with time on its side. OpenAI has a device to ship and a book to build.

Sources