Apple filed a lawsuit on Friday against OpenAI over allegations of theft of trade secrets and breach of contract.

The iPhone maker alleges that this misconduct, which it claims reveals a pattern of theft from OpenAI employees who previously worked at Apple, was directed by OpenAI’s senior management, including hardware director Tang Tan.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Tan of using confidential Apple project code names during OpenAI’s recruiting process, asking candidates to bring Apple hardware components to their interviews, training outgoing Apple employees on how to circumvent the company’s security procedures, and asking for details about the company’s unannounced products.

Before joining OpenAI, Tan spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch.

The accusations come at a time when OpenAI is rumored to be developing its first hardware product, which would likely compete with the iPhone. In April, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that this device could be a smartphone that would rely on artificial intelligence agents rather than apps. If true, it would be one of the biggest threats to Apple’s core hardware business to date.

Former Apple lead designer Jony Ive’s IoT device startup was acquired by OpenAI last year in a $6.5 billion deal to help the artificial intelligence company with its hardware ambitions. While Io was named in the presentation, I’ve not.

Tan is not the only OpenAI employee referenced in the new complaint. Apple also alleges that Chang Liu, who spent eight years at Apple as a senior systems electrical engineer, failed to return a laptop provided by Apple after leaving the company for OpenAI in 2026 and had used the computer to download confidential Apple technical documents.

Apple says in the complaint that the stolen documents included information about unannounced technologies, features and products, including technical specifications, engineering presentations and proprietary project data.

Liu is also accused in the lawsuit of sharing confidential Apple information with other Apple employees applying for jobs at OpenAI, advising at least one of them on what to study before their interview.

Apple sent a letter to OpenAI in February to express its concerns and received no response, the company said in the complaint.

It alleges that the behavior of these former employees is part of OpenAI’s strategy to extract sensitive information from Apple, which included asking Apple employees to bring designs and prototypes to their interviews and answer questions about things like component and supplier selection processes.

Apple says its ongoing investigation revealed that OpenAI and its partners have even used confidential Apple information while the AI ​​model maker develops its own hardware product. For example, the filing references a proprietary metal finishing technique that was used by OpenAI after it allegedly tricked a partner into believing it had Apple’s permission to do so.

Like many technology companies, Apple typically investigates possible theft of trade secrets or other inappropriate activities by analyzing communications that took place on company-owned devices and reading logs on its servers. By taking the case to court, Apple will have the opportunity to learn more about the scope of the alleged operation through the legal discovery process.

Apple is asking the court to prohibit OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, require the company to return any confidential Apple materials, and preserve evidence related to the case.

“This is the tip of the iceberg. Apple lacks visibility into what has been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership,” the document states. “As a natural result, OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to the core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.”

In a prepared statement, Apple also said the following:

“At Apple, our teams are constantly developing innovative technologies to create the best products and services in the world, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take very seriously. Recently, significant evidence has emerged suggesting that people employed by OpenAI wrongly misappropriated Apple’s secret and confidential information about our unreleased technologies, processes, and products. We will always defend the hard work and innovations of our teams, and we are taking all appropriate steps to do so.”

OpenAI was asked to comment.

The presentation is available here, or you can read it below.

This story is developing, will be updated, and was originally published at 1:32 pm PT.