Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
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Litigation
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Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development
AI Company Calls Injunction Request ‘False’ as Hardware Dispute Escalates
Emilia David •
August 5, 2026
Image: Shutterstock
OpenAI is rejecting claims made by smartphone titan Apple in a lawsuit that alleges the artificial intelligence company and its employees conspired to steal trade secrets to get ahead in the AI hardware race. OpenAI called Apple’s assertion claim “careless, aggressive and oddly personal.”
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Apple sued OpenAI, former Apple executives Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan and io Products on July 10, claiming breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation (see: OpenAI Hardware Biz Built with Apple Secrets, Apple Says).
It filed Monday a motion for preliminary injunction in a demand for a federal judge to order OpenAI from “accessing, acquiring, using, or disclosing Apple confidential or trade secret information in any manner.” A hearing is set for Oct. 1.
Apple accused two OpenAI employees who used to work at Apple of downloading proprietary information and eliciting current Apple employees to give up more trade secrets in job interviews with the AI company.
In a blog post, OpenAI vehemently denied Apple’s allegations.
“Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction is both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets,” OpenAI said.
The lawsuit stems from the race to build consumer devices powered by AI. While Apple is one of the largest consumer hardware providers in the world, it is seen as an AI laggard despite inventing one of the first voice assistants, Siri. On the other hand, OpenAI is mostly a software company.
OpenAI announced in May 2025 that it partnered with io Products from Jony Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, iPad and the colorful run of iMacs, to create its own line of AI-powered hardware. OpenAI bought io Products in July that same year, which brought io Products cofounder and former Apple employee Tang to the company.
Apple said that Tang used an internal Apple project codename “to elicit still more trade secrets from job candidates and distributed Apple’s departure protocols to help recruits evade detection.” The company also accused Chang of downloading “voluminous technical files” from Apple’s cloud storage while employed at OpenAI. Apple said it had contacted OpenAI about its concerns, but it never responded.
In OpenAI’s telling, Apple never raised any of these allegations in its correspondence. The company denied that it never responded to Apple, claiming that Apple’s outside lawyers mistakenly confused the last names of two Asian OpenAI employees. The AI firm also said Apple falsely asserted to have had a discussion with its general counsel, a claim “they now concede never happened.” OpenAI said Apple’s representatives told them that they were resolving any issues related to trade secrets.
“We then heard nothing for five months until they sued,” OpenAI said.
The AI lab went further, stating that Apple employees approached Chang to help find information still under his account and that it was Apple’s fault it could not properly manage its permissions. It also defended Tang, saying he “has always been clear with the team that we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies.”
OpenAI has since released its first hardware product, a Stream Deck-like keyboard to access AI agents called Codex Micro in July this year. It partnered with Montreal-based company Work Louder to develop and manufacture Codex Micro. It has not yet revealed what the io AI device would be.