Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, alleging the theft of trade secrets including unreleased parts, prototypes, confidential designs and documents relating to stealth projects. Filed in the US district court in San Jose, the suit claims that Tan — a 24-year Apple veteran who oversaw iPhone product design — and colleagues encouraged departing Apple staff to bring proprietary technology with them, coached recruits on evading Apple's security protocols, and directed them to bring confidential parts to job interviews. The case matters because it pits two former partners against one another as they increasingly compete in the emerging market for AI-powered consumer devices, and could become Silicon Valley's biggest intellectual-property battle since Waymo's 2017 suit against Uber, which Uber settled for $245 million.

Apple says OpenAI has hired more than 400 of its former employees and last year paid $6.5 billion to acquire io Products, a startup cofounded by ex-Apple figures including Tan, Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey and designer Jony Ive. Also named as defendants are io Products and electrical engineer Chang Liu, who allegedly retained access to Apple's internal file-sharing system after leaving in January — enabled by a since-fixed bug — and downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files, including a presentation on manufacturing circuit boards. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company has "no interest in other companies' trade secrets", while Apple, which raised concerns in February without receiving a response, said it would "always defend our teams' hard work and innovations". The two firms have partnered since 2024 to distribute ChatGPT on Apple devices, though the relationship has since frayed, with Apple turning to Google's Gemini for its in-house AI models.