Apple has sued OpenAI, io Products and two former Apple employees, accusing them of taking confidential information to support OpenAI’s move into consumer hardware, according to a complaint cited by Daring Fireball and reporting by 9to5Mac’s Chance Miller.
The filing names Chang Liu and Tang Tan as individual defendants. Miller reported that Tan was Apple’s vice president of product design, with responsibility for iPhone and Apple Watch product design, before leaving in February 2024 to work with Jony Ive. Liu spent eight years at Apple and was a senior system electrical engineer before joining OpenAI in January 2026, according to 9to5Mac.
Apple’s allegations focus on OpenAI’s hardware organization and io, the startup associated with Ive, Apple’s former chief design officer. OpenAI acquired io last year in a $6.5 billion deal, bringing in more than 50 engineers, developers and other employees, according to the same report. OpenAI said at the time that Ive founded io with Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey and Tan.
What Apple says happened
In the complaint, Apple alleges that OpenAI and related parties engaged in a coordinated effort to use Apple confidential information in building OpenAI’s hardware business. Apple claims the conduct involved io, which it describes in the filing as a venture co-founded by Tan and other former Apple leaders.
The complaint says the defendants used Apple information when dealing with Apple’s trusted partners. Apple also alleges that one partner was asked to perform a specific trade-secret metal-finishing technique for OpenAI, while being led to believe Apple had approved the work.
Those claims remain allegations. The complaint, as described by Daring Fireball, is Apple’s initial filing. OpenAI, io Products, Liu and Tan have not had their defenses described in the material available here.
Who is named, and who is not
The personnel map matters because OpenAI’s hardware effort is stacked with former Apple design people. Hankey led Apple’s design team for several years after Ive left the company, then departed in 2022 before later rejoining Ive through io, according to 9to5Mac. Cannon also previously worked at Apple.
Apple’s filing names OpenAI and io Products as corporate defendants. It names Liu and Tan personally. Daring Fireball noted that Ive, Hankey and Cannon are not personally named in Apple’s initial complaint, despite their roles in io’s formation and OpenAI’s hardware push.
The complaint also draws a line around Apple’s existing business relationship with OpenAI. A footnote in the filing says Apple and OpenAI have a written agreement covering the integration of ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence. Apple says that agreement is not part of this lawsuit and that the alleged trade-secret theft does not arise from that arrangement.
That distinction is a legal one, and Apple is making it explicitly. The practical consequence is messier: Apple is accusing the same company it relies on for ChatGPT integration of building a hardware operation with misappropriated Apple information. The complaint does not say Apple has ended or changed the Apple Intelligence arrangement.
This story draws on original reporting from Daring Fireball.
