Apple has officially sued OpenAI. Not over some minor licensing dispute, but over allegations that OpenAI ran a coordinated scheme to steal Apple’s trade secrets to build its own hardware. This is one of the messiest tech lawsuits I’ve seen in a while, especially given these two companies were sitting at the same table for ChatGPT’s integration into Apple Intelligence just two years ago.
The 41-page complaint was filed on July 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple isn’t mincing words in the filing. Right in the introduction, the complaint states plainly that this case is about former Apple employees stealing trade secrets to benefit OpenAI, and that Apple is suing to put a stop to it. It goes further, alleging misconduct happening “at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer,” and even in coordination with business partners.
Who’s Actually Named
The complaint names five defendants: Chang Liu, Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, and io Products, LLC.
Tang Yew Tan spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as VP of Product Design for iPhone and Apple Watch. He left in early 2024, initially joining Jony Ive’s independent hardware venture, io Products, which OpenAI later folded in. He’s now OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer.
Chang Liu worked at Apple for eight years as a Senior Systems Electrical Engineer. He left Apple on January 22, 2026, to join OpenAI.
io Products, LLC is the entity Tan co-founded with other former Apple leaders, acquired by OpenAI in 2025 for roughly $6.5 billion.
The complaint argues io is essentially a shell of OpenAI at this point, alleging OpenAI “directed and controlled the operations and assets of io,” down to hiring decisions and vendor selection, and that io’s CEO, Brendan Herron, has actually been an OpenAI employee since 2023. Apple is asking the court to treat io as OpenAI’s alter ego so the company can’t dodge liability by hiding behind a separate corporate shell.
The Chang Liu Allegations
This is where the complaint gets almost cartoonishly reckless. According to the filing, Liu didn’t return an Apple-issued laptop when he left, and stayed in close contact with a former colleague still working at Apple, Yu-Ting ”Alyssa” Peng, who joined OpenAI herself in April 2026.
The complaint quotes a message Liu allegedly sent Peng within hours of leaving Apple: “I still have another computer,” referring to a device he planned to use to keep accessing Apple’s internal information.
Weeks later, he allegedly discovered he could still get into Apple’s cloud-based network storage, the result of an authentication bug Apple didn’t yet know about. Rather than reporting it, Apple claims he celebrated the find in a message to Peng: “LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny.” Her reply, per the filing, was just as blunt: “I’m ready.”
From there, the complaint alleges Liu spent weeks downloading dozens of confidential files, including a compilation running over a thousand pages of technical material tied to work he’d done at Apple.
One specific document named in the filing is a presentation on manufacturing and testing multi-layer logic boards, reportedly detailing testing workflows, equipment used, and how to interpret the diagnostic data.
Apple also alleges Liu coached Peng before her own OpenAI interviews, telling her what confidential material to study and, according to the complaint, sharing that another candidate had “fumbled” answers to a question Tan had asked about a secret unreleased Apple project. To avoid leaving a trail on Apple-owned devices, the two allegedly agreed to move their conversations to a separate messaging app, LINE.
The Tang Tan Allegations
Apple’s claims against Tan center on how OpenAI’s hiring process is allegedly structured. The complaint says Tan has used Apple’s internal project code names during interviews to ask about unreleased products, and cites one instance where a candidate started downloading files tied to a confidential Apple project hours before interviewing with Tan, who then reportedly asked about that exact project.
Apple also alleges Tan directed candidates to bring physical Apple components into interviews for “show and tell” sessions, quoting a message where he allegedly asked an employee to bring in “Batteries,” “SIP” (systems-in-package), “mlb” (logic boards), and “shields.” One candidate reportedly found this odd enough to remark he “didn’t even know we could take those from the office.”
On the exit side, the complaint alleges Tan obtained an internal Apple document marked “Need to Know,” describing the company’s employee-departure security procedures, and has been circulating it to new OpenAI hires before they give Apple notice. Messages cited in the filing allegedly show OpenAI advising departing employees they “won’t sign anything at the exit interview” and to flag it immediately if Apple asks them to.
The Broader Pattern Apple Alleges
Beyond the two named individuals, Apple claims this reflects a company-wide practice at OpenAI. The complaint describes interview requests asking Apple candidates to prepare “Technical Deep Dive” presentations covering subsystem selection, CAD tools, and vendor relationships, and to bring “CAD/design artifacts” and “prototypes” straight from their current jobs. Other alleged talking points included “piece parts” and “housings and BGs [back glass] in different colours.”
Apple also alleges the theft reached its supply chain directly. The complaint describes one trusted manufacturing partner allegedly being misled into performing Apple’s proprietary metal-finishing technique for OpenAI’s benefit, believing it had Apple’s blessing to do so.
A second supplier, working with Apple on power and battery manufacturing, was repirtedly approached with insider-level questions about specific confidential components that only someone with Apple knowledge would think to ask.
Apple says it flagged its concerns to OpenAI directly back in February 2026, but got no real response, which is what pushed the investigation further and ultimately led to this filing.
What Apple is Asking For
Apple isn’t just seeking damages. The complaint asks the court to block OpenAI, io, Tan, and Liu from using or disclosing any of Apple’s trade secrets, order the return of all confidential material, require preservation of evidence, and award damages plus a reasonable royalty and exemplary damages for willful misappropriation, with a jury trial demanded. None of these allegations have been proven yet; OpenAI hasn’t filed a formal response.
The Quotes Get Personal
Apple’s language throughout the filing is unusually aggressive for a corporate lawsuit. One line calls this “the tip of the iceberg,” arguing Apple has no visibility into what’s happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, “where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership.” Another states that OpenAI’s hardware business “now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core.”
OpenAI’s response, through spokesperson Drew Pusateri, was brief: the company said it has no interest in other companies’ trade secrets and remains focused on building technology that empowers people. That’s about as bare-minimum a denial as you can issue against a 41-page complaint full of quoted internal messages.
Why This is Happening Now
Apple and OpenAI had a very public partnership starting in 2024, when ChatGPT got baked directly into Siri and Apple’s Writing Tools. Sam Altman even showed up at Apple’s headquarters for the announcement.
Since 2024, though, OpenAI’s hardware ambitions have accelerated fast. Per the complaint, OpenAI’s valuation went from around $29 billion in 2023 to roughly $852 billion by April 2026, and the company is reportedly preparing for an IPO after raising more than $180 billion from investors while burning cash at a historic rate.
The filing also notes OpenAI partnered with Foxconn (Apple’s own iPhone assembler) along with established Apple suppliers Luxshare and Goertek, and had reportedly completed its first hardware prototypes by November 2025. Apple’s read on all this: under pressure to actually ship a device, OpenAI “resorted to taking unlawful shortcuts.”
There’s also a twist worth mentioning: OpenAI itself had reportedly been weighing legal action against Apple, alleging Apple hadn’t held up its end of the ChatGPT integration deal. So depending on who you believe, either OpenAI got caught with its hand in the cookie jar, or this lawsuit is partly a preemptive strike to get ahead of OpenAI’s own complaint.
Elon Musk Trolls Sam Altman
Elon Musk, never one to skip a chance to needle Sam Altman, has been having a field day with this on X, and Altman is actually engaging back instead of ignoring it, which has only fueled the pile-on. Musk kicked things off by quipping that Altman “takes scamming to a whole new level,” to which Altman clapped back that Musk is “the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters.”
Musk didn’t let that go, firing back with a jab about Starship flights next year and a crack about Altman needing his “parole officer” to approve, followed by a much sharper line: “After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple’s phone technology! Wow.” He capped it off asking what Altman”s “encore” could possibly top that.
Others weren’t kind to Altman either. One user, @iliketeslas, pointed out that Altman “wasn”t afraid of Elon but he is terrified of Apple,” pointing to how much he was posting about it. Altman tried to play it cool, replying that he isn’t “afraid of apple,” just has “tremendous respect” for them, calling Apple an “s-tier company.”
That didn’t land well either; Nikita Bier piled on with a dig about Apple having “incredible trade secrets as well, some of the best,” and Musk simply replied with a laughing emoji. Going by the engagement numbers on the thread, Musk’s jabs pulled in several times the traction Altman’s replies did, so this is shaping up as a rare instance of Musk actually ratioi’ng Altman.
Worth remembering: Musk sued OpenAI over claims the company abandoned its nonprofit roots, and lost that case just two months before this Apple suit landed. So there’s a decent amount of schadenfreude on his end watching Apple do what his own lawsuit couldn’t.
Where This Leaves Things
Both companies are still deeply intertwined through the Apple Intelligence partnership, and Apple hasn’t said whether the lawsuit changes anything about that relationship going forward.
What’s clear is that OpenAI’s hardware ambitions, the ones built around Jony Ive’s design pedigree, are now under a legal cloud with a court record full of unusually specific and embarrassing internal messages, right as the company prepares to actually ship something and head toward an IPO.
This case is just getting started, and given how much is riding on OpenAI’s hardware push and IPO timeline, expect this one to escalate rather than quietly settle.
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