Two years ago Apple put ChatGPT inside the iPhone. On July 10, 2026, it took OpenAI to federal court. Apple filed suit in the Northern District of California accusing OpenAI — and Jony Ive's hardware startup io Products — of stealing its trade secrets to build a competing AI gadget. The complaint doesn't hedge. It says OpenAI has been taking Apple's confidential information at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer.
That's a remarkable thing for one partner to say about another. So how did we get here, and how much of it holds up? Here's the timeline and the evidence, with one thing kept front and center: everything Apple says is an allegation. OpenAI denies it, and none of it has been tested in court.
From partners to adversaries
The two companies started 2024 as allies. Apple announced it would build ChatGPT into iOS, and OpenAI got the kind of distribution most startups only dream about. Around the same time, a longtime Apple executive named Tang Tan — 24 years at the company, VP of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch — left. He joined io Products, a hardware startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive.
In May 2025, OpenAI bought io Products for roughly $6.4 billion. The message was clear. OpenAI wasn't going to stay a software company renting space on other people's devices. It wanted hardware of its own.
By early 2026 the friction was public. In April, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said OpenAI was working on a smartphone built around AI agents instead of apps — a direct shot at the iPhone. Apple, according to its own filing, sent OpenAI a letter in February raising concerns and got no response. Five months later, it sued.
What Apple actually claims
Apple's core accusation is not that OpenAI hired away good people. Companies poach each other constantly, and that's legal. The claim is that OpenAI used those people as a pipeline for Apple's secrets.
Two former employees are named. Tang Tan, now OpenAI's chief hardware officer. And Chang Liu, a senior systems electrical engineer who spent eight years at Apple before leaving in 2026. io Products is named as a defendant too. Jony Ive is not.
The evidence, weighed
Some of what Apple alleges is concrete. Some of it is circumstantial. It's worth separating the two.
The strongest-sounding claims involve Chang Liu. Apple says he exploited a security bug to download confidential engineering files on his way out, never returned his company laptop, and pulled a compilation of technical files with over a thousand pages covering the complex circuit boards inside Apple hardware. If Apple can show that in discovery — the download logs, the unreturned device — that's the kind of specific, documented act that trade-secret cases turn on.
The claims against Tang Tan are stranger, and more damaging if true. Apple says he told Apple job candidates to bring actual parts from Apple to their OpenAI interviews. One candidate allegedly replied that he didn't even know we could take those from the office. Apple says interviewees were asked for CAD files and prototypes, and that Tan used an internal Apple project codename to ask a candidate What's the plan? for an unannounced product. Turning a job interview into a debriefing session is a serious charge. It also lives or dies on what the witnesses actually remember and what got written down.
Then there's the number Apple leads with for effect: over 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI. On its own that proves nothing. Apple is enormous, and people leave big companies every day. But it's the backdrop Apple wants the court to read the specific incidents against.
OpenAI's side
OpenAI's response is short and flat. We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.
There's context worth knowing. The relationship had already soured over the ChatGPT-Siri integration, and OpenAI was reportedly weighing its own legal action against Apple earlier in 2026. This is not a one-sided grievance. It's two former partners who both feel wronged. It also lands in a season when OpenAI keeps ending up in court. It beat back an Elon Musk lawsuit this spring, and in June a judge tossed a separate suit from xAI that accused OpenAI of poaching an engineer to get at Grok's secrets. Read one way, Apple is the latest company to feel burned. Read another, OpenAI keeps getting accused of the same thing and keeps winning.
Why it matters
Strip away the famous names and this is a fight about who gets to build the device that comes after the smartphone. Apple thinks OpenAI is trying to skip the hard, expensive years of hardware development by walking Apple's playbook out the door. OpenAI thinks it hired talented people and built something new.
A complaint is just one side talking. The real test starts now, when Apple has to put the laptop logs, the interview accounts, and the downloaded files in front of a judge, and OpenAI gets to answer them. If you care where your next AI device comes from, this is the case to watch.
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