Apple has sued OpenAI for trade secret misappropriation, alleging a deliberate pattern of theft by former Apple engineers now working at the AI company. The complaint names OpenAI, IO Products (Jony Ive's hardware startup acquired by OpenAI in 2025), and two individuals: Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer, and Chang Liu, who crossed over from Apple as recently as January.
The specificity of the named defendants is what makes this lawsuit structurally significant. This is not a broad corporate grievance. Apple is pointing at exact people, exact roles, and an exact acquisition, suggesting it has documentary evidence tied to the IO Products deal and the hardware ambitions behind it.
The full complaint, available on DocumentCloud, details the alleged theft and its connection to OpenAI's push into physical AI hardware. Read it to understand how Apple believes its internal R&D was being used to build a competitor's product roadmap.
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