Apple has sued OpenAI, accusing former Apple employees now working for the AI company of taking trade secrets and using them for OpenAI’s benefit.
The complaint names OpenAI, IO Products, Tang Tan and Chang Liu as defendants, according to the filing cited by The Verge. IO Products is the hardware startup founded by Jony Ive that OpenAI bought in 2025. Tan is OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, and Liu joined OpenAI from Apple in January.
Apple claims in the complaint that it found what it describes as a repeated pattern involving former Apple staff who moved to OpenAI and allegedly took confidential Apple material with them. The case puts a legal fight around OpenAI’s hardware ambitions, an area where the company has been moving beyond software and models into physical products. The allegations remain just that: allegations in a lawsuit.
What Apple says was taken
Apple has not publicly laid out, in the available reporting, a technical inventory of the information it says was stolen. Its public statement is broad. In a statement shared with 9to5Mac, an Apple spokesperson said “significant evidence” had surfaced suggesting OpenAI employees “wrongfully took” Apple confidential information about unreleased technologies, internal processes and products.
That wording matters because trade secret cases usually turn on specifics: what the information was, who had access to it, how it allegedly left the company, and whether the receiving company used it. The details available so far identify the accused people and entities, but do not yet explain the alleged transfer mechanism in public reporting.
Apple said in the same statement that it treats protection of its teams’ work and intellectual property seriously and is taking appropriate steps to defend it. That is corporate boilerplate, but the filing itself is the meaningful move: Apple is asking a court to treat the alleged conduct as more than a recruiting spillover between large technology companies.
Who is named
OpenAI, the AI company accused by Apple of benefiting from the alleged theft.
IO Products, Jony Ive’s hardware startup, which OpenAI acquired in 2025.
Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer.
Chang Liu, who joined OpenAI from Apple in January.
Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to The Verge’s requests for comment. OpenAI has not, in the available reporting, given its side of the dispute.
The lawsuit lands at an awkward moment for OpenAI’s hardware push. Buying IO Products brought Ive’s design operation into OpenAI’s orbit, giving the company a route into devices. Apple’s complaint now claims at least part of that hardware effort may be entangled with Apple confidential information. A court will have to sort out whether Apple can prove that claim, and whether any OpenAI work actually used protected Apple material.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
