After Apple filed a massive lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of running a campaign to steal trade secrets about upcoming, unreleased Apple hardware, ChatGPT creator has responded, announcing that its has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets”. The fallout between two of the world’s most high-profile technology partners came to fore following a lawsuit filed on Friday, July 10, in the Northern District of California.OpenAI broke its silence with Drew Pusateri, OpenAI’s Director of Strategic Communications, taking to X (formerly Twitter) to flatly deny the allegations: “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere”.Just two years ago, Apple and OpenAI celebrated a close strategic partnership at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple software head Craig Federighi publicly hailed the startup as the “pioneer and market leader” in artificial intelligence (AI).
The ‘pattern of theft’ and interview schemes
According to the lawsuit, Apple claims that OpenAI actively normalized a “pattern of theft” led by former Apple employees. The iPhone maker alleges that OpenAI specifically targeted Apple workers and encouraged them to bypass security systems to steal confidential hardware information, components and drawings.Apple even claims that OpenAI used its job recruitment process to harvest corporate secrets. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI encouraged job candidates during interviews to bring physical Apple prototypes, share proprietary manufacturing processes, and help the AI company tap into Apple’s closely guarded supplier network.Apple claims these stolen materials were used to jumpstart OpenAI’s own secret consumer hardware projects.The lawsuit explicitly names two former Apple employees alongside OpenAI and an AI device startup called io Products Inc.:Tang Tan, who is currently the chief hardware officer at OpenAI. He was previously Apple’s vice president of product design, where he directly oversaw the engineering and development of the iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods. Tan originally left Apple in 2024 to co-found io Products before transitioning to OpenAI.Chang Liu, who is a former iPhone hardware engineer and left Apple. Liu joined OpenAI in January.The internal drain of talent at Apple appears to be ongoing. The lawsuit notes that just last month, the top executive in charge of Apple’s highly confidential smart glasses project also defected to join the team at OpenAI.
