'Every Level' of OpenAI Stole Trade Secrets, Apple Suit Says

Apple sued a onetime ally on Friday, accusing OpenAI of systematically stealing trade secrets to build competing consumer hardware in a scheme carried out "at every level" of the company. The complaint filed in federal court in Northern California says OpenAI staff members—including engineers up the chain to Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan, a former Apple vice president—encouraged Apple employees interviewing with them to reveal confidential information and even bring physical parts to "show and tell" sessions, CNBC reports.

OpenAI recruited from Apple as it has been preparing to debut its first hardware device later this year, per Axios, and Apple says more than 400 former employees now work for its rival. In addition to OpenAI, the suit names Tan, former employee Chang Liu, and IO Products—the Jony Ive-founded hardware startup that OpenAI acquired for $6.4 billion—as defendants. Apple accuses Liu of downloading confidential files from its network while he was developing hardware for OpenAI. The suit also says OpenAI misled manufacturing partners into using a proprietary metal-finishing process Apple developed. "OpenAI's nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets," the lawsuit says, per the AP.