Apple and OpenAI Engage in Heated Trade Secrets Dispute

Apple has asked a federal judge for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI and two former Apple employees, seeking to bar them from accessing, using, or disclosing what Apple alleges are its trade secrets. The underlying lawsuit accuses former senior electrical engineer Chang Liu and former iPhone and Apple Watch design VP Tang Tan of taking confidential hardware designs to help OpenAI develop a competing consumer AI device. A hearing on the injunction request is scheduled for October 1, 2026 .

OpenAI fired back in a blog post, calling Apple's filing "careless, aggressive, and oddly personal," and said it does not have nor want any of Apple's trade secrets. OpenAI also claimed Apple's outside lawyers mixed up the two engineers' names in correspondence and referenced a phone call with OpenAI's general counsel that never took place.

Apple argues the harm compounds daily, since any misappropriated designs could be folded into OpenAI's hardware roadmap in ways that grow harder to unwind. The dispute intensifies just as AAPL works to defend its device ecosystem against a well-funded entrant, while OpenAI presses ahead with its own hardware ambitions.

The October hearing will determine whether OpenAI faces court-ordered restrictions on its hardware work before the underlying trade secrets case is resolved. Investors in both companies should watch for discovery developments, including the forensic inspections Apple has requested, that could reshape the case's trajectory.