Less than two months after OpenAI won a court case against Elon Musk, it’s got another tech-titan-induced legal headache to contend with.
Apple on Friday sued the San Francisco artificial-intelligence giant, charging that it stole the iPhone maker’s trade secrets. The company’s complaint, filed in federal court in San Jose, could be the opening salvo of a long and costly battle, legal experts said.
“We’ve got the battle of the elephants going on here,” said Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University’s law school.
Not only are both companies behemoths, with plenty of money to throw at the fight, but both are likely to see the battle as crucial — even existential — because it could affect OpenAI’s ability to enter Apple’s core gadget market.
OpenAI officials have acknowledged the company is developing devices built around its AI technology. Such gadgets represent a potentially big new market for the company, which has been struggling to stanch its losses and create a profitable business.
But such devices have the potential to undermine sales of Apple’s phones, which still represent the majority of that company’s revenue.
“Apple has good motivation to fight this out,” said Vince Joralemon, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law and Technology.
On the flip side, if Apple tries to get a court order barring or delaying OpenAI from selling devices, the AI company “will have to fight tooth and nail on this,” he said.
In the lawsuit, Apple alleges that OpenAI has been stealing its trade secrets via current and former employees and suppliers. Trade secrets can cover a wide variety of information, including not just in-development product designs, but the prices a company pays for services or goods, its list of suppliers and how it does quality-assurance testing — as long as the company has made an effort to keep such information secret.
According to the lawsuit, more than 400 Apple employees have gone to work for OpenAI. Apple charges that at least some of them have intentionally taken the company’s trade secrets with them to the AI company.
Apple also alleges that OpenAI officials have used hiring interviews to induce Apple employees who are seeking jobs at the ChatGPT developer to disclose such confidential information.
Apple specifically calls out two former employees for participating in the alleged scheme: Tang Tan, who is OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, and Chang Liu, a technical staff member at the AI company.
Tan co-founded AI-device startup Io with Jony Ive, Apple’s legendary former chief designer. He joined OpenAI last July when it acquired Io — which is also named in the suit — for $6.5 billion.
Prior to that, Tan had worked at Apple for 24 years, eventually becoming a vice president in charge of product design, overseeing the iPhone and Apple Watch, according to the lawsuit.
A screen capture from a video shows Jony Ive and Sam Altman discussing the acquisition of Io, Ive’s gadget startup.
Courtesy of OpenAI
In interviews with Apple employees applying for jobs at OpenAI, Tan has solicited secret information about unreleased products by referring to them by their code names, according to the lawsuit. He’s also directed them to bring confidential parts and products to their interviews, Apple said in its complaint.
The lawsuit also alleges that Tan kept a secret Apple document that details the steps the company takes to secure its confidential information when employees leave. He’s shared that document with Apple employees before they notify Apple that they are departing, so they know how to evade such measures, the company said in its complaint.
Meanwhile, Liu joined OpenAI in January after working at Apple for eight years as a senior system electrical engineer. While at Apple, he worked on some of its top-secret product-development efforts, according to the lawsuit.
Apple’s complaint alleges that when Liu left the company, he failed to turn in a company-issued laptop, and he didn’t respond when the company attempted to set up an exit interview with him to confirm that he’d handed over his devices and was aware of his confidentiality agreement. After he’d already joined OpenAI, he also exploited a hole in Apple’s authentication system to download confidential information, according to the lawsuit.
Additionally, he coached another Apple employee who was applying to work at OpenAI on how to access confidential information without alerting Apple’s security team, Apple said in its complaint. He also advised her on what secret information to study before her interview with OpenAI, according to the lawsuit.
Apple alleges that what Tan and Liu did were part of a broader effort by OpenAI and Io to steal its confidential information. In interviews, prospective employees of the AI company met with panels of people who pressed them about secret projects and operations, according to the lawsuit.
OpenAI also convinced an Apple supplier to use an confidential Apple-owned metal-finishing technique on a product, misleading the supplier to believe OpenAI had Apple’s permission, according to the complaint. OpenAI tried to get information about Apple’s confidential components from another supplier by using the latter’s secret terminology, according to the lawsuit.
OpenAI is taking all these steps “to advance [its] efforts to enter the consumer hardware market,” Apple said in the complaint.
“OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” it said in the complaint.
Apple representatives hadn’t responded to an email seeking comment about the lawsuit as of press time.
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“We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets,” Pusateri said. “We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”
Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law: “That story often changes over the course of the lawsuit, and often it starts falling apart, pieces start dropping out, when it’s clear that the plaintiff overclaimed.”
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Because OpenAI hasn’t yet responded to Apple’s charges, it’s hard to know exactly how strong a case the iPhone maker has, legal experts said. The initial complaint typically represents the very best story the plaintiff can make about what happened, said Goldman, who is the co-director of the Datta Center for High Tech Law at Santa Clara University.
“That story often changes over the course of the lawsuit, and often it starts falling apart, pieces start dropping out, when it’s clear that the plaintiff overclaimed,” he said.
Indeed, there’s reason to think that at least some of what Apple is alleging is actually legal, said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford University’s law school.
There’s nothing wrong, necessarily, with OpenAI hiring people away from Apple or even coaching them on how to leave the iPhone maker, he said.
Such steps “may actually be part of good business practice,” he said.
That said, if employees did actually take Apple trade secrets with them to OpenAI and the latter used them, “that is a problem for OpenAI,” he said.
It’s also a problem for the employees themselves, the legal experts said.
Liu, especially, could be in legal jeopardy, Joralemon said. According to the complaint, Liu didn’t just keep an Apple laptop and exploit a security hole — he boasted about the latter to the Apple employee he was coaching for an interview with OpenAI, saying it was “so funny.”
“That doesn’t look good,” Joralemon said. “I wouldn’t want to be his lawyer.”
Liu did not respond to a request for comment sent through LinkedIn.
A big hurdle for Apple is going to be proving that OpenAI the company — not just individuals within it — was aware of the alleged theft of the its trade secrets, said Camilla Hrdy, a professor at Rutgers Law School.
Last year, xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence company, similarly accused OpenAI of hiring its employees to steal its trade secrets, Hrdy noted. But a judge dismissed that case, finding that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to show that OpenAI induced such theft or even knew that a particular employee had disclosed trade secrets.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, arrives at the U.S. District Court in Oakland in April 30, 2026. OpenAI was being sued by Elon Musk over its conversion to a for-profit company.
Godofredo A. Vásquez/Associated Press
What OpenAI knew with regards to Apple’s trade secrets “is going to be a really big question,” Hrdy said.
There will likely be two crucial moments for the case in coming months, the experts said — OpenAI will move to dismiss the case, and the court will hold a hearing on Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against the AI company.
If the judge denies the motion to dismiss, Apple can proceed on to the discovery phase, during which it can seek additional evidence to prove its case and attempt to tie OpenAI more closely to the alleged theft.
The hearing on the preliminary injunction will be like a mini-trial, the outcome of which will be a good indication of how the case will pan out, said Elizabeth Rowe, a professor at the University of Virginia’s law school.
It’s likely Apple will be able to fend off the motion to dismiss, just because of the allegations it’s already made, she said — but how the judge will come down on injunction is anyone’s guess.
Regardless, no one should expect a quick resolution of this case, given what’s at stake and the parties involved, said Rowe, who is also the director of Virginia’s Center on Intellectual Property Law. The Apple-OpenAI battle is a “bet the company” case, she said.
“It has all of the makings, from what we’ve seen so far, of a case that could go quite a way,” she said.
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