Apple sues OpenAI, names ex-iPhone VP at center of alleged trade-secret theft

Apple walked into a San Francisco federal courthouse on Friday and accused OpenAI, its Siri partner from 2024, of running a trade-secret theft scheme out of the office of its own former iPhone design chief.

The pivot from Siri partner to courtroom adversary

Apple Inc. filed the complaint on Friday, July 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case is captioned Apple Inc. v. Liu et al. The document runs 41 pages. It names OpenAI and its hardware subsidiary, io Products, as corporate defendants, and it names two former Apple engineers, Tang Tan and Chang Liu, as individual defendants.

The relationship the complaint describes was, until recently, a partnership. In 2024, Apple and OpenAI announced a headline deal to bring ChatGPT into Siri as part of Apple Intelligence. The pivot came in May 2025, when OpenAI paid roughly $6.4 to $6.5 billion to acquire io Products, the hardware design firm co-founded by Jony Ive, Apple's former Chief Design Officer, along with Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan. The transaction was the largest acquisition in OpenAI's history, and it turned the ChatGPT company into a direct hardware competitor to Apple. Public reports have consistently described the resulting project as a pocketable AI companion device.

Tan, who spent roughly 24 years at Apple and most recently served as Vice President of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, left in February 2024. He is now OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer, and he sits at the center of Apple's complaint. Jony Ive is named in the filing but is not personally accused of theft.

What Apple says the two engineers did

The allegations against Chang Liu are the more mechanical of the two. Liu worked at Apple for 8 years as a senior systems electrical engineer before leaving in January 2026 to join OpenAI. Apple alleges he failed to return his Apple-issued laptop after his departure and used it to download confidential Apple technical documents. The filing references more than 1,000 pages of Apple circuit-board manufacturing documents that Apple says were taken. Apple alleges Liu also instructed a still-employed Apple engineer on how to bypass internal security systems, and that he reacted to an exploited security bug with the messages "LOL" and "so funny." The complaint further alleges he shared confidential Apple information with colleagues who were themselves applying to jobs at OpenAI.

The allegations against Tan describe a recruiting operation. Apple says Tan used confidential Apple project codenames during OpenAI's interviews as a signal to Apple candidates about what OpenAI was building, and that he asked candidates to physically bring Apple hardware components into OpenAI interviews for what the filing calls "show and tell" sessions. Apple alleges Tan asked candidates for details about specific unannounced Apple products, and that he coached departing Apple employees on how to evade the company's exit-security procedures. Apple ties these allegations together with a broader claim that the pattern of theft was directed from OpenAI's senior leadership, including Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan.

The 400 hires and one manufacturing shortcut

Apple's filing places the two named engineers inside a much larger population. It claims more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. The suit does not attack that hiring itself. It attacks how, Apple says, some of those hires happened. The allegation that OpenAI recruiters used confidential Apple codenames as bait, and asked candidates to arrive with Apple hardware in hand, is what turns hiring into what the complaint characterizes as a scheme operating "at every level" of OpenAI's hardware operation, from candidate interviews up through the office of the Chief Hardware Officer.

The complaint also carries one striking manufacturing claim. Apple says OpenAI used a proprietary Apple metal-finishing technique after allegedly misleading a manufacturing partner into believing OpenAI had Apple's permission to use it. Apple does not name the partner in the public complaint.

Apple says it did not go straight to court. It says it sent OpenAI a cease-and-desist letter in February 2026, and that OpenAI never responded. Five months later, on Friday, the filing landed in the Northern District of California.

What Apple is asking, and what OpenAI is saying

Apple asks the court to bar OpenAI from using or disclosing Apple trade secrets, to force the return of any confidential materials in OpenAI's possession, and to preserve evidence. The complaint seeks injunctive relief, monetary damages, and declaratory judgments. It does not name a specific dollar figure for damages.

Apple's own summary in the complaint is blunt. "This case is about Apple's former employees stealing Apple's trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI. Apple brings this suit to put a stop to it," the filing reads. An Apple spokesperson added on Friday that "recently, significant evidence has emerged suggesting individuals employed by OpenAI wrongfully took Apple's secret and confidential information regarding our unreleased technologies, processes, and products," and that "at Apple, our teams are constantly developing breakthrough technologies to create the best products and services in the world, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take very seriously."

OpenAI issued its own statement in response. "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets," the company said. "We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere."

For now, those two statements sit against each other. Tan and Liu have not been convicted of anything; Apple's filing lays out civil allegations that have not yet been tested in court. The case will be assigned a judge in San Francisco, discovery will begin, and the physical items at the center of the dispute, a laptop, more than 1,000 pages of circuit-board documents, and a metal-finishing recipe, will move from Apple's press release into the evidentiary record.

Why this filing lands where it does

The industry context is what makes the caption worth reading twice. A company that in 2024 was Apple's headline Siri partner has become, less than two years later, Apple's highest-profile courtroom adversary. The accused hardware chief is Apple's own former iPhone design VP. The alleged shortcut is a metal-finishing process for a pocketable device that would sit in the same jacket pocket as the iPhone.

The lawsuit also arrives at a specific moment in OpenAI's roadmap. The company is publicly developing its first consumer hardware product with Jony Ive's team. Every week of injunction risk, every subpoena for a circuit-board file, every deposition of a former Apple engineer now employed by OpenAI, is a week of drag on that program. Apple has not put a dollar figure on the damages it wants. The meaningful number, for now, is the calendar.

The complaint is filed. The court has not yet ruled.

Sources

• Apple Newsroom
• OpenAI
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of California