Apple sues OpenAI for, get this, stealing trade secrets

The suit names Chang Liu, who worked as a senior system electrical engineer at Apple for eight years. The company accuses him of failing to follow confidentiality procedures, such as returning his Apple-issued laptop. After leaving Apple, Liu allegedly used the laptop to gain unauthorized access to Apple’s internal network and “celebrated his improper access,” sending messages of “LOL” and “so funny” to a colleague. The company accuses him of training another Apple employee he was recruiting for OpenAI to copy confidential files and “avoid trouble from the security team.” The suit alleges OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan, former Vice President of Product Design for iPhone and Apple Watch who spent 24 years at Apple, of “methodically using Apple’s confidential information to benefit OpenAI.”

But Apple thinks this goes way further than the two former employees. The company accuses OpenAI of “instructing” the Apple employees they’re recruiting to bring prototypes to interviews, while also instructing them on how to avoid scrutiny. Apple thinks “this is the tip of the iceberg.” 

“OpenAI’s conduct is knowing and deliberate,” the lawsuit states, “as demonstrated, for example, by its senior executives using Apple’s internal project code names in interviews, asking candidates about confidential Apple projects, directing them to bring Apple parts and prototypes, distributing Apple’s internal departure procedures to Apple employees before they announce their departures, which helps them avoid scrutiny, by OpenAI employees celebrating, using, and doing nothing to stop prohibited access to confidential Apple data and repositories, and by OpenAI employees communicating over private platforms to avoid detection.”

OpenAI has been looking to get into the hardware space for some time now. Last year, it acquired former Apple designer Jony Ive’s firm, io, for $6.5 billion. The promised hardware, which is rumored to be a smartphone that uses hallucinating agents instead of apps, has yet to materialize. But, in a case of “I learned it from you,” OpenAI is only following one of Steve Jobs’ favorite Picasso quotes, which probably came from T.S. Elliot: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.”