(CNN) — Apple sued OpenAI on Friday, alleging the AI company has stolen the iPhone maker’s trade secrets to develop its own yet-to-be-unveiled AI gadgets.
In the suit, filed in the District Court of Northern California, Apple accuses OpenAI of trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract.
OpenAI last year announced it has been working with Jony Ive, who served as Apple’s design chief until 2019, on a hush-hush project to build devices meant to bring smartphone users into the age of AI. (The suit does not name Ive as a defendant nor does it accuse him of wrongdoing.)
The device is expected to be unveiled later this year – but the lawsuit could throw a wrench into those plans. The suit could also complicate OpenAI’s plans to go public soon in a massive, hotly anticipated IPO.
CNN has reached out to OpenAI for comment.
The suit names OpenAi; OpenAI’s Chang Liu, a former Apple engineer, and OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan, who previously led iPhone and Apple Watch product design; and io Products, the company founded by Ive, as defendants.
Liu and Tan played a critical role in the theft, Apple alleges. Liu left Apple to join OpenAI in January 2026 and did not respond to Apple’s attempts to ensure that he signed the company’s confidentiality reminder, schedule an exit interview and confirm that he returned his company devices, Apple claimed in the suit. The lawsuit says he failed to return a work-issued laptop and also gained access to a former colleague’s work computer after leaving the company.
Liu accessed and downloaded “dozens of Apple’s confidential hardware-related files, including voluminous, detailed information about unreleased products, engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data,” the lawsuit says.
Apple alleges that Tan used confidential company information when recruiting candidates, including instructing them to bring Apple parts during the interview process. It also alleges Tan and OpenAI coached Apple employees on how to leave the company.
The company also says it found evidence that other former Apple employees had taken confidential information with them upon leaving to work for OpenAI.
“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,” Apple said in a statement.
In the lawsuit, Apple said it contacted OpenAI to raise its concerns when the investigation was in its early stages but that it never received a response.
The lawsuit also represents a breakdown in the relationship between the two companies, which in 2024 announced a partnership to start integrating ChatGPT into Apple products. But in May, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was considering legal action against Apple, potentially alleging breach of contract over claims that Apple had not sufficiently integrated and promoted OpenAI’s products across its devices.
OpenAI has aggressively poached top current and former Apple leadership and engineering talent, primarily to build a dedicated hardware division.
According to a CNN count of LinkedIn profiles, OpenAI has recently hired at least ten engineers who joined the AI company directly from Apple.
This story is developing.
The-CNN-Wire
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