Apple is not playing around with its lawsuit against OpenAI, its onetime partner and now apparent rival, over allegedly stolen trade secrets.
After filing a bombshell lawsuit against the AI company last week, the Cupertino giant has reportedly sent legal letters to roughly 40 former employees who now work at OpenAI.
The Financial Times reports, citing unnamed sources, that the letters direct the former employees to preserve relevant documents and communications and ask them to meet with Apple’s lawyers. The outlet describes the move as part of an aggressive strategy by Apple to gather evidence supporting its case.
OpenAI and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The letters are a major escalation in a legal battle that could throw a wrench into OpenAI’s closely watched plans to get into the consumer hardware game.
Apple filed its lawsuit in California federal court last week, accusing OpenAI and two former Apple employees who now work at the AI company of stealing trade secrets related to Apple’s manufacturing processes and products still in development.
Apple’s complaint alleges that OpenAI Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan, a former Apple vice president, directed Apple employees interviewing with OpenAI to share company secrets during the hiring process. Tan is named as a defendant in the suit.
The suit represents an existential crisis for OpenAI’s plans as a hardware business. Apple argues that OpenAI’s future products would be fundamentally built on stolen property.
“He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring ‘Actual parts’ from Apple to their interviews for ‘show and tell’ sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information,” the lawsuit states.
Apple also alleges that Chang Liu, a former senior systems electrical engineer at the company who now works at OpenAI, kept a company laptop after leaving and downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files. Liu is also named as a defendant.
“This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” Apple said in the lawsuit.
OpenAI told Reuters in a statement last week that it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets.”
For his part, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X that he’s not “afraid” of Apple.
Even Altman’s archrival, Elon Musk, chimed in and used the lawsuit as an opportunity to call Altman a scammer.
The lawsuit also marks a major shift in the relationship between the companies, which began to sour as OpenAI started to make moves into consumer hardware.
Apple struck a deal with OpenAI in 2024 to integrate ChatGPT into Apple devices. However, earlier this year, Apple announced it was revamping Siri with Google’s Gemini models.
Meanwhile, OpenAI acquired io Products, the hardware startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, for $6.5 billion last year. Apple’s lawsuit also names the startup as a defendant.
Bloomberg reported this week that the highly anticipated device being developed by OpenAI and io Products could be a screenless smart speaker with the ability to move around on its own. The device is reportedly intended to work as a “humanlike AI companion” that can play music and other media, control home appliances, answer questions, and complete other tasks through ChatGPT. It’s expected to be announced by the end of this year before launching in 2027. OpenAI is also reportedly exploring a separate mobile AI device.
This pivot into hardware will put OpenAI in more direct competition with tech giants like Apple, Google, and Amazon. Instead of just building the AI that runs on other companies’ devices, OpenAI now wants to build and sell the devices people use to access it.
The company has already taken a smaller step into the hardware business. This week, it released its first branded hardware product, a $230 mini keyboard designed specifically to work with its Codex coding agent.
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