Apple has filed a federal lawsuit in California accusing OpenAI of systematically poaching hardware secrets through a recruiting pipeline disguised as job interviews.
The suit names OpenAI's chief hardware officer Tang Tan and former Apple engineer Chang Liu, alleging they participated in a pattern of misconduct in which candidates brought unreleased hardware prototypes to interviews at OpenAI. Apple claims this amounted to deliberate trade secret theft as OpenAI prepares to enter the consumer hardware market. The lawsuit was filed on Friday in a California federal court.
The timing is pointed. OpenAI has been loudly telegraphing ambitions in consumer devices, and Apple's lawsuit lands as a preemptive shot across that bow. If the allegations hold, it suggests OpenAI's hardware roadmap may have been built, at least in part, on a foundation it didn't earn.
Apple has sued over trade secrets before, but suing a named C-suite officer at a rival is a different level of aggression — one that signals Cupertino views OpenAI's hardware push as a direct competitive threat, not just a nuisance.