Apple’s lawsuit couldn’t come at a worse time for OpenAI

Apple filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging misconduct by its chief hardware officer and claiming over 400 former Apple employees now work at the AI company. The lawsuit threatens OpenAI's reported IPO plans later this year and raises broader questions about trust in AI companies with user data.

Apple filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/the-wildest-allegations-in-apples-trade-secrets-lawsuit-against-openai/ last Friday, and it’s not messing around. The complaint alleges a pattern of misconduct reaching all the way up to OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and claims more than 400 former Apple employees now work at the company. OpenAI’s response so far https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/14/openai-pushes-back-on-apple-trade-secret-lawsuit/ has been carefully hedged, and the timing couldn’t be worse with the company reportedly eyeing an IPO as early as later this year. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity https://techcrunch.com/podcasts/equity/ podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into what the lawsuit could mean for OpenAI’s own hardware ambitions and IPO timeline, plus a bigger theme running through the week’s news: how much should anyone trust AI companies with their data? Listen to the full episode to hear more about: - Why Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is warning enterprises https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/satya-nadella-has-issued-a-shocking-warning-to-companies-using-ai/ about handing data over to AI labs, and whether open source https://techcrunch.com/podcast/open-source-ai-matters-more-than-ever-according-to-hugging-faces-clem-delangue/ is really a way out of the “Trojan horse” data-trust problem - How forward-deployed engineers https://techcrunch.com/podcast/inside-ode-with-anthropic-the-private-equity-backed-startup-betting-ai-services-are-the-future-of-enterprise/ FDEs are changing the relationship between AI labs and their enterprise customers - Why General Catalyst just handed David Beckham’s health drink startup a $1 billion customer value fund https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/14/david-beckhams-health-drink-startup-im8-takes-1b-from-general-catalysts-unusual-cvf-fund/ - The scoop on a new $200M drug-discovery startup from an ex-OpenAI researcher https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/14/openai-researcher-miles-wang-in-talks-to-launch-ai-drug-discovery-startup-valued-at-2b/ Subscribe to Equity on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@TechCrunch , Apple Podcasts https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1215439780 , Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1215439780/equity , Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5IEYLip3eDppcOmy5DmphC?si=rZDFHv2sQUul g94iCRgpQ and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X https://twitter.com/EquityPod and Threads https://www.threads.net/@equitypod , at @EquityPod.