Apple on July 10, 2026, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing OpenAI and two former Apple employees—Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan and engineer Chang Liu—of orchestrating a coordinated campaign to steal Apple’s trade secrets to support OpenAI’s development of AI hardware devices. The complaint alleges that Tan, a former Apple VP of product design, encouraged Apple employees interviewing at OpenAI to bring actual Apple components to interviews for “show and tell” sessions, and that Liu retained an Apple-issued laptop and exploited a bug to access and download confidential files after joining OpenAI. Apple claims this misconduct reflects an institutional-level pattern of misappropriation. OpenAI responded, stating it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and remains focused on innovation. Apple is seeking injunctive relief, damages, and the return or destruction of any misused materials. This lawsuit marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between the two companies, which had previously collaborated on integrating ChatGPT into Siri before Apple shifted to Google’s Gemini AI. The case could significantly impact OpenAI’s hardware ambitions and its path toward a potential IPO.