apple File a lawsuit against OpenAI and two of its employees, alleging that they stole trade secrets from Apple to support the development of OpenAI devices.
OpenAI employees are named in the suit, the chief hardware officer Tang tan Member of the technical staff Chang Liuformer Apple employees, The Wall Street Journal I mentioned Friday (July 10).
The lawsuit alleges that Tan emailed himself information about Apple suppliers and asked Apple employees to bring parts to OpenAI during job interviews, and that Liu downloaded confidential files from Apple’s network and trained an Apple employee how to copy confidential files, according to the report.
Apple said in the lawsuit that it did not know what OpenAI did with the information, but alleged that “at every level, from members of its technical staff to its chief hardware officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI was stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” according to the report.
Neither Apple nor OpenAI immediately responded to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
In a statement “Recently, significant evidence has emerged suggesting that individuals working at OpenAI wrongly took confidential Apple information related to our unreleased technologies, processes, and products,” an Apple representative provided to CNBC said.
Reuters I mentioned Friday that OpenAI currently employs more than 400 former Apple employees. The report also stated that Apple said in its complaint that it wrote to OpenAI in February asking to discuss concerns about confidential information and received no response.
Bloomberg I mentioned Friday that through Apple’s lawsuit, it demands that OpenAI stop the practices alleged in the lawsuit, destroy any proprietary materials and redesign its upcoming products so that they do not use any Apple technology.
PYMNTS reported in June 2024 that Apple and OpenAI partnered to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT Language model On Apple iOS, iPadOS, and macOS platforms.
In May 2025, OpenAI announced that it had acquired io, an Artificial intelligence device A startup whose founders include Tan.
In December, it was reported that dozens of employees had left Apple to work on OpenAI and Meta at a time when competitors are working to challenge the market share held by the iPhone and other parts of Apple’s ecosystem, Apple is adapting to the era of artificial intelligence, and new… Devices It is being developed to make the most of this technology.
