Apple Sues OpenAI Over Stolen Hardware Secrets Filed Friday

According to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple accused OpenAI and two former employees, Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, of stealing hardware trade secrets. Liu, a former Apple senior system electrical engineer who left in January after eight years, allegedly downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files and exploited an authentication bug to access Apple's internal systems without reporting the breach.

Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple before becoming OpenAI's chief hardware officer, allegedly used confidential information from his Apple tenure to benefit OpenAI's hardware efforts. The lawsuit claims OpenAI's recruiting process requested CAD design artifacts, prototypes, and supplier information from candidates. According to Apple's filing, OpenAI has hired over 400 former Apple employees. Apple says it contacted OpenAI about the matter in February but received no response.