According to The Verge, Apple filed suit against OpenAI, IO Products, and hardware chief Tang Tan, alleging that ex-Apple engineer Chang Liu and others transferred confidential hardware designs and specifications to OpenAI's device effort. The complaint ties the alleged theft to IO Products, the startup OpenAI acquired in 2025 to build consumer hardware.
This lawsuit exposes the real battleground in the AI race: not models, but the device layer where hardware makers control how users interact with AI every day. Apple and OpenAI are both racing to own that layer, and when top talent walks out the door with product blueprints, it becomes a legal matter, not just an HR headache. The case will test whether Big Tech can actually enforce trade secret claims in the AI talent war.
Watch for whether Apple seeks an injunction that could freeze OpenAI's hardware timeline or restrict named employees from certain projects. OpenAI will have to decide fast: fight the claim as overreach or isolate the accused engineers and contain the damage.
The AI industry keeps framing itself as a race over models and compute. It's also a race over people who know how to turn a lab demo into a product you carry in your pocket. Apple is arguing that OpenAI crossed a line by hiring those people and acquiring their knowledge. The claim lands hardest because it points straight at OpenAI's most ambitious move since ChatGPT: building hardware under Tang Tan and IO Products. If Apple wins, it signals that the talent market has real legal teeth. If OpenAI prevails, it opens the door wider for AI companies to poach hardware expertise from traditional tech giants.
Filed to the Technology desk · Jul 10