Overview
- Apple filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of California on July 10, 2026, accusing OpenAI, its hardware unit io Products and two former Apple engineers of a coordinated campaign to acquire Apple trade secrets.
- The complaint names OpenAI’s chief hardware officer Tang Yew Tan and ex‑Apple engineer Chang Liu and alleges Liu kept a company laptop, used a now‑fixed bug to access Apple’s internal cloud and downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files.
- Apple says Tan and others instructed job candidates still employed at Apple to bring physical Apple parts to interviews for 'show and tell' sessions and coached recruits on evading Apple’s offboarding and security procedures.
- The suit also alleges OpenAI approached Apple suppliers and in at least one case obtained a demonstration of a proprietary Apple metal‑finishing technique under misleading pretenses.
- Apple is seeking injunctions to bar use of the materials, the return or destruction of allegedly stolen data and monetary damages, a fight that could complicate OpenAI’s device plans, its relationship with Apple and its path to an IPO.