Apple sues OpenAI over alleged theft of hardware trade secrets
Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging the systematic theft of hardware trade secrets, naming OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran, as a defendant. According to the filing, Tan directed job candidates still employed by Apple to bring physical parts from the company to their interviews for what the suit describes as "show and tell" sessions designed to extract confidential information. A separate defendant, former Apple employee Chang Liu, is alleged to have stolen an Apple laptop upon departing for OpenAI. Apple stated in a representative's comment to CNBC that significant evidence recently emerged suggesting that individuals at OpenAI wrongfully took secret information about unreleased technologies, processes, and products, with specifics in the filing reaching down to proprietary metal-finishing techniques.
The timing is striking given that the two companies remain active partners, with ChatGPT baked into Apple's iPhone software. The lawsuit lands less than a month after OpenAI was reported to have threatened Apple with its own legal action over the terms of that partnership, a move that, in retrospect, looks like an extraordinary miscalculation. Apple also has reason to be sensitive about OpenAI's broader hardware ambitions, particularly following OpenAI's acquisition of the Jony Ive-founded design firm io, an effort widely seen as aimed at building a device to compete with the iPhone and staffed in no small part with Apple recruits.
If the allegations hold up, the consequences for OpenAI could extend well beyond legal fees, potentially derailing the company's hardware ambitions for years at the precise moment it has assembled the software foundation to support them.