Apple accuses OpenAI of using insiders to get hardware secrets

Apple is accusing OpenAI of building part of its hardware effort with help from confidential Apple information, a fight that matters because Apple’s edge depends heavily on protecting how it designs and manufactures devices. For investors following Apple, the case is about more than legal friction: it is a test of how aggressively the company can defend the intellectual property, or protected know-how, behind products like the iPhone and Apple Watch.

In a 41-page complaint filed Friday, Apple alleges OpenAI coordinated efforts to obtain trade secrets from Apple employees and former employees. A trade secret is confidential business information that can give a company an advantage, such as design methods, manufacturing processes or internal technical documents.

OpenAI has denied interest in competitors’ trade secrets. In a statement shared on X on Friday, the company said: “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

Apple says the conduct reached beyond isolated employees

Apple’s complaint argues that the alleged behavior was part of a broader pattern at OpenAI, rather than a few employees acting on their own. Apple says discovery, the legal process where each side can demand documents, messages and other records, will show the alleged misuse was larger than the specific examples in the filing.

The company also points to OpenAI’s hiring of former Apple workers. According to Apple’s complaint, more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. Apple says it is expected that some of those people would know confidential Apple information, but alleges OpenAI exploited that information despite those workers’ obligations to keep it secret.

Messages and devices are central to the complaint

One allegation involves Chang Liu, a former senior systems electrical engineer at Apple who later joined OpenAI. Apple says Liu messaged Apple employee Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng that he had discovered he could access Apple network storage. Peng, who later joined OpenAI and is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, allegedly responded that she was ready.

Apple claims Liu accessed Apple systems by using an authentication bug, meaning a flaw in the sign-in or access-control process. The complaint says he did so from a former colleague’s Apple-issued work computer. Apple also alleges Liu texted within hours of leaving Apple that he still had another computer, referring to another Apple machine he planned to use to reach confidential Apple information.

Apple further alleges OpenAI coached Apple employees who were leaving the company on how to avoid Apple security procedures. The complaint says OpenAI circulated an internal Apple document marked “Need to know” that described how to reduce the chance of being immediately removed from Apple after giving notice, instead of staying for the usual two-week period.

Apple also says OpenAI told departing Apple employees to alert OpenAI as soon as possible if Apple asked them to sign anything during an exit interview, and advised them not to sign.

Recruiting claims focus on hardware parts and designs

The complaint names Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former Apple executive who spent 24 years at the company, most recently as vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple alleges Tan directed Apple employees interviewing with OpenAI to bring actual Apple parts to interviews for show-and-tell sessions.

Apple says one candidate responded that he did not know Apple parts could be removed from the office. The complaint also alleges candidates were asked to bring CAD and design materials, as well as prototypes. CAD means computer-aided design, the software-based files engineers use to create and revise product designs.

Apple also names io, the company founded by former Apple employees including Jony Ive and acquired by OpenAI last year in a $6.5 billion deal, as a defendant. Apple alleges io used Apple industrial design techniques related to metal finishing and misled an Apple partner into believing it had Apple’s permission to perform a confidential metal-finishing process.

The complaint says OpenAI also approached a supplier using Apple confidential information about power and battery-related design and components, including internal terminology that Apple says only insiders would know.

Apple says it contacted OpenAI in February to raise its concerns and alleges OpenAI did not respond. The lawsuit now puts one of tech’s biggest public companies and one of AI’s most closely watched private companies in a direct legal fight over hardware know-how.

This story draws on original reporting from TechCrunch.