Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the AI company of trade secret theft and breach of contract. Apple alleges that OpenAI's senior leadership, including Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan — a 24-year Apple veteran who was previously VP of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch — directed a pattern of misconduct to extract confidential information from former Apple staff who moved to OpenAI. The case matters because OpenAI is rumoured to be developing its first hardware product, potentially an AI-driven smartphone that could pose one of the biggest threats yet to Apple's core hardware business.

According to the complaint, Tan allegedly used Apple's confidential project code names during recruitment, asked candidates to bring Apple hardware components to interviews, coached departing employees on evading Apple's security procedures, and sought details about unannounced products. A second former employee, engineer Chang Liu, is accused of failing to return an Apple laptop and using it to download confidential technical documents, then sharing information with other job candidates. Apple says it wrote to OpenAI in February but received no response, and it references OpenAI's acquisition last year of Jony Ive's device startup io in a $6.5 billion deal, as well as a proprietary metal finishing technique OpenAI allegedly used after misleading a partner. Apple is asking the court to bar OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, return confidential materials, and preserve evidence.