Apple and OpenAI spent 2024 as partners. On Friday, July 10, 2026, they became adversaries. Apple sued OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging a coordinated effort to steal Apple's trade secrets and accelerate OpenAI's push into consumer hardware — a market Apple frames as one of the largest threats to its core business.
The complaint
Apple's filing describes theft it says ran "at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer." The company alleges a "show and tell" pattern: OpenAI recruiters soliciting confidential information from current and former Apple staff, using Apple's internal project code names, and — in one instance — asking Apple candidates to bring "actual parts" such as batteries and logic boards to interviews. Apple says it first raised concerns in a February 2026 letter that OpenAI never answered. It is seeking an injunction, monetary damages and a declaratory judgment; no damages figure is specified.
The two named defendants
Tang Tan, now OpenAI's chief hardware officer, spent roughly 24 years at Apple, rising to VP of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch before leaving in February 2024 for Jony Ive's hardware startup. Chang Liu, an eight-year Apple systems electrical engineer who joined OpenAI in January 2026, allegedly kept his Apple-issued laptop and exploited a bug that let him reach Apple's cloud storage after departing, downloading dozens of confidential files on unreleased products. Ive himself is not named and is not accused of wrongdoing.
From partners to rivals
OpenAI acquired Ive's io Products — a named corporate defendant — in an all-equity deal valued at roughly $6.5 billion, announced in May 2025, and is building its first consumer device. The suit lands after a striking reversal: Apple integrated ChatGPT into Siri in 2024, then in January 2026 turned to Google's Gemini to power a revamped Siri, leaving no partnership to cushion the fight. Apple also asserts that more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI — its own count of the talent drain, not the number accused of theft.
OpenAI's response
OpenAI rejected the claims. "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets," spokesperson Drew Pusateri said, adding that the company remains "focused on building innovative technology." Apple, for its part, said "significant evidence has emerged" that OpenAI staff "wrongfully took Apple's secret and confidential information," and that it would "always defend our teams' hard work and innovations."