Apple Sues OpenAI for Trade Secret Theft: Candidates Were Asked to Bring Parts to Interviews
In 2024 Apple and OpenAI were shaking hands on stage. In 2026 Apple is suing OpenAI in Northern California federal court.
Three key facts
Apple filed suit on July 10, accusing OpenAI of systematically stealing its trade secrets. The complaint alleges the theft happened "at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer." Apple named two individuals in particular: OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan, a former Apple vice president, and Chang Liu, a senior systems electrical engineer who spent eight years at Apple. Apple says roughly 400 of its former employees now work at OpenAI.
The most damning allegation: Tang Tan allegedly told interview candidates still employed at Apple to bring "actual parts" for "show and tell" sessions. Apple frames this not as ordinary talent poaching but as a coordinated campaign to extract confidential technology. Chang Liu is separately accused of failing to return an Apple-issued laptop after leaving and using it to download confidential Apple technical documents.
The lawsuit is rooted in OpenAI's aggressive push into hardware. In 2025, OpenAI acquired former Apple design legend Jony Ive's startup IO Products for $6.4 billion, then recruited heavily from Apple's silicon design, on-device AI, and hardware teams. Apple is asking the court to bar OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, require the return of all confidential materials, and preserve related evidence.
WangDou's Take
Poaching talent in Silicon Valley is nothing new, but asking candidates to bring their current employer's parts to an interview as "show and tell" — that's not recruiting, that's moving day. The damage in this complaint isn't the number 400. It's the image: a former Apple VP sitting in an OpenAI interview room, telling an engineer who still badges in at Cupertino to pull prototype components out of a bag. OpenAI paid $6.4 billion for Jony Ive's company, then apparently tried to take Apple's parts cabinet along with it. If these allegations hold up, OpenAI's hardware ambitions weren't built from scratch — they were lifted from Apple's drawers.
Source: CNBC · TechCrunch · Fortune