Apple sues OpenAI and former employees for stealing trade secrets to build AI hardware

Apple filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court accusing OpenAI and two former employees of stealing trade secrets to build the AI company's first hardware devices, marking a major rupture in their prior partnership. The 41-page complaint alleges that OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, and former Apple engineer Chang Liu orchestrated a coordinated campaign to misappropriate confidential information about unreleased Apple products, including guiding job candidates to bring actual Apple parts to interviews and using a stolen laptop to bypass security and download proprietary files. Apple claims OpenAI even misled a manufacturing partner to replicate Apple's metal-finishing techniques without permission, stating that OpenAI's nascent hardware business is "rotten to its core" by its reliance on stolen secrets. The iPhone maker is seeking a jury trial, monetary damages, and a court order forcing OpenAI to redesign its upcoming products to exclude any of Apple's technology, potentially delaying OpenAI's entry into the consumer hardware market.