Apple went to federal court. CBS News reported on July 10, 2026 that Apple filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of California against OpenAI Inc., io Products, OpenAI’s hardware subsidiary, and two named defendants: Tang Tan, currently OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer, and Chang Liu, a hardware engineer. PBS independently confirmed the filing.
What Apple alleges
The allegations are specific and institutional. According to CBS News reporting on the complaint, Apple alleges Tang Tan, who previously served as an Apple VP of Product Design before joining OpenAI, used proprietary Apple codenames during job candidate interviews and requested that candidates bring physical unreleased hardware components to meetings framed as “show and tell.” Apple didn’t describe this as an isolated lapse. The complaint characterizes it as a method of extracting proprietary information through the hiring process itself, with OpenAI’s own Chief Hardware Officer in the facilitating role.
The complaint further alleges, per CBS News, that Chang Liu downloaded confidential hardware files on a company-issued Apple laptop after resigning from Apple and subsequently instructed another employee on bypassing Apple’s internal security monitoring. Liu is identified as a hardware engineer who joined OpenAI’s io Products division.
OpenAI denied the allegations. According to CBS News, an OpenAI spokesperson stated the company “has no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and characterized OpenAI as focused on building its own technology.
Apple v. OpenAI, Stated Positions
Why it matters
io Products is OpenAI’s hardware division, and its ambitions are real, the subsidiary has been associated with OpenAI’s efforts to build consumer hardware that extends beyond software interfaces. Apple’s complaint doesn’t dispute that OpenAI is building hardware. It alleges that OpenAI’s hardware chief used Apple’s own hiring pipeline to accelerate that effort with stolen IP. If the allegations are proven, they’d establish that a frontier AI company’s talent acquisition function was itself an intelligence operation against a direct competitor. That’s a different kind of legal risk than a data licensing dispute.
For the broader AI industry, the lawsuit surfaces a documented legal theory around executive recruiting as trade secret extraction, not just as “poaching,” but as a structured process for obtaining proprietary information. Companies running aggressive hiring campaigns across hardware engineering talent should assess their own recruiting practices in light of what Apple is alleging here.
Context
The Northern District of California is Apple’s home court, Cupertino is within its jurisdiction, and it’s the standard venue for Apple IP litigation. The filing date of July 10, 2026 makes this first coverage in the hub’s registry. No prior Apple-versus-OpenAI federal lawsuit entry exists.
What to watch
OpenAI’s formal legal response will define the next stage. Watch for whether io Products files separately or responds jointly with OpenAI. Tang Tan’s and Chang Liu’s individual legal status matters, named individual defendants in federal trade secret cases face different exposure than corporate defendants. The hardware Apple claims was compromised hasn’t been publicly specified by Apple in terms of the product category; that detail may emerge in early motions or filings. Don’t expect a quick resolution, federal trade secret cases of this complexity typically run two to three years before trial.
TJS synthesis
Every AI company recruiting aggressively from hardware competitors should read this complaint carefully, regardless of how the litigation resolves. Apple’s legal theory, that the hiring interview itself became the extraction mechanism, is a framework other plaintiffs can adopt. The question isn’t whether your recruiting team intends to extract IP. The question is whether your interview process could be characterized that way. Get your legal and recruiting teams in the same room before your next round of senior hardware engineering hires.
Sources: The Guardian, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News.