Apple (AAPL) is suing OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), accusing the AI lab of trade secret theft as part of its effort to develop its own AI hardware devices.
"OpenAI and its cohorts have been engaging in a coordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level," Apple claims.
In its suit, filed in the US District Court for Northern California, Apple alleges that OpenAI's hardware chief Tang Tan, who previously served as vice president of product design at Apple, and Chang Liu, a former Apple electrical engineer who now works at OpenAI, colluded to steal information from the iPhone maker that would help it build its AI products.
According to the suit, Tan began emailing himself information about Apple's suppliers before leaving his position at the company and moving on to OpenAI.
The lawsuit also states that Tan would use internal Apple codenames when interviewing candidates for positions at OpenAI who worked at Apple, in an effort to dig up further information. Tan, the suit says, also requested candidates who still employed by Apple to bring "actual parts" to interviews for "show and tell" sessions.
Liu, the suit claims, used a former Apple colleague's Apple-issued laptop to access Apple's network and exploited a previously unknown bug to open the company's shared network folders, down hardware-related files about unreleased products and other proprietary data.
Liu also allegedly told his former Apple colleague, whom he was recruiting to OpenAI, how to dodge Apple's security teams.
Apple has also named io Products, an AI hardware company founded by Tan and former Apple designer Jony Ive, in the suit. OpenAI purchased io Products in 2025.
"The Corporate Defendants, with or through their employees or partners, have been acting in concert and as an enterprise, exploiting Apple's confidential information to advance OpenAI's efforts to enter the consumer hardware market," the lawsuit states.
"They have used confidential Apple information in approaching Apple's trusted partners, even having one carry out a specific trade secret metal-finishing technique for OpenAI, misleading the partner to believe they had Apple's permission to do so," the suit says.
Apple and OpenAI initially appeared to be on track for a fruitful relationship after Apple debuted a version of its Apple Intelligence platform that features OpenAI's ChatGPT software in 2024.
But the relationship has deteriorated since, with OpenAI reportedly threatening to sue Apple over the way it integrated ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence.