Apple sues a former partner for the first time in 50 years: OpenAI accused of trade secret theft

Apple and OpenAI shared the stage at the iPhone maker’s Worldwide Developers Conference two years ago, when software chief Craig Federighi called the ChatGPT maker the ‘pioneer and market leader’ in artificial intelligence, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman watching from the audience. That partnership has now landed in court.

Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday, July 10, in the Northern District of California — what is reportedly the first time in the company’s 50-year history it has sued a close partner. The two companies never had a formal hardware development partnership, but had collaborated on AI features used across Apple’s products.

The suit accuses OpenAI and its chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, of running a coordinated effort to obtain information, components and drawings related to Apple’s upcoming products. Tan is a former Apple vice president of product design who left the company in 2024 to co-found io Products Inc, a startup OpenAI later bought for $6.5 billion. A former iPhone hardware engineer, Chang Liu, who joined OpenAI in January, is also named for allegedly downloading confidential hardware files.

Apple says more than 400 of its former employees now work at OpenAI, which is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering in the coming months. Bloomberg News has separately reported that OpenAI was weighing its own legal options against Apple, including a possible breach-of-contract notice, after saying it had not seen the expected benefits from the partnership.

Apple is seeking a jury trial and wants OpenAI to halt the alleged practices, destroy proprietary materials and redesign upcoming products so they contain none of Apple’s technology. ‘Significant evidence has emerged suggesting individuals employed by OpenAI wrongfully took Apple’s secret and confidential information regarding our unreleased technologies, processes and products,’ the company said in a statement, adding that efforts to resolve the matter out of court had failed to draw a response from OpenAI.