Apple accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets in its efforts to manufacture its own hardware for ChatGPT on Friday, a major split in a cooperation between the iPhone maker and the artificial intelligence company.
In the case filed in a California federal court, Apple alleged OpenAI urged Apple employees it was recruiting to divulge personal information, even directing how to escape scrutiny when taking jobs at the other business.
“This case is about Apple’s former employees stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI,” the petition states. This suit is brought by Apple to end it.
Two former Apple employees who currently work at OpenAI are also mentioned as defendants. One is Tang Tan, who helped design the iPhone, Apple Watch and iPod and now is chief hardware officer at Open AI. The other is Chang Liu, a former electrical engineer who Apple says it trusted with some of its most sensitive product development initiatives before Liu left Apple to join OpenAI earlier this year.
OpenAI said it’s still analyzing the application, but in a statement Friday, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri stated “we have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on producing new tech that benefits people everywhere.”
Suit accuses OpenAI of taking shortcuts on hardware OpenAI has never been specific about what kind of gadget it is working on, but it has defined it as an effort to come up with a new method to engage with AI that goes beyond “traditional products and interfaces.” It’s part of a bigger push to bring a tangible manifestation of the latest AI developments, a decade after Amazon and Google brought screen-free talking speakers into homes.
The lawsuit claims the initiative was based in part on stolen knowledge from Apple.
“OpenAI’s nascent hardware business is now built on the flimsiest of foundations, rotting from the inside out by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” the lawsuit alleges.
Apple claimed it began examining whether any of its private information had been exposed and found a pattern of theft of Apple trade secrets by former workers who went on to work at OpenAI.
The lawsuit claims that both Liu and Tan accessed Apple’s secret company information and files while working at Open AI. Among the allegations, Apple says Liu used an Apple-issued device that he kept after leaving to view and download multiple secret hardware-related materials. It also says Tan told candidates for jobs who were still employed by Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews at OpenAI.
Apple said in the lawsuit it contacted OpenAI in February to convey its concerns early in its inquiry, but said that OpenAI did not react.
In a statement Friday, an Apple spokeswoman said the company “will always defend the hard work and innovations of our teams, and we are taking all appropriate steps to do so.”
Partnership with Apple has moved toward rivalry A few years ago, as the AI competition ignited by the arrival of ChatGPT was leaving Apple behind, the company looked to OpenAI for help. In 2024, the two businesses collaborated to introduce ChatGPT as an AI-based “answer engine” for the iPhone, supplementing the native Siri tech when it fell short of customer requirements. Recently the cooperation has been marked by rivalry.
As part of its growth drive, OpenAI has hired former Apple designer Jony Ive to lead a project to construct an AI-powered device that many experts believe might eventually take on Apple’s products.
Last year, OpenAI revealed it was collaborating with Ive on a covert hardware project aimed at creating a new method to communicate with artificial intelligence. OpenAI purchased io Products, a product and engineering outfit started by Ive, Tan and two others, as part of the collaboration in a deal worth around $6.5 billion.
The little-known software startup IyO Inc. sued Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for trademark infringement for the similar-sounding name and the firms’ prior contacts. The business also sued one of its own former workers for allegedly disclosing a private drawing of iyO’s unannounced product, eventually tacking on trade secret theft charges against Tan to the suit.
Apple's lawsuit also names io Products as a defendant. Lawyers who once represented the firm and Tan declined to comment, referring The Associated Press to OpenAI.
Apple’s action comes as OpenAI is thinking about going public on Wall Street and facing more competition from rivals including Anthropic and Google.
The company’s chief financial officer told The Associated Press this spring that it scaled back some of its business ventures earlier this year to focus on its core product, but has continued to seek a gadget.
“We do have consumer hardware that’s coming around the end of this year,” CFO Sarah Friar told the AP in April.
