The clash no longer stays confined to the courtroom.
According to information obtained by the Financial Times, Apple has sent personal letters to about 40 former employees who are now working at OpenAI. The company orders them to preserve all documents and communications that could serve as evidence and demands meetings with its lawyers.
A move that, according to several sources close to the case, aims to bolster the accusations of corporate espionage that were leveled last week.
A Dramatic Complaint
The iPhone maker does not mince words.
In its filing on Friday with the federal court for the Northern District of California, Apple accuses OpenAI of soliciting job candidates to disclose information about confidential projects, going so far as to ask them to bring components and prototypes to interviews.
The company goes further, alleging that an OpenAI employee downloaded internal documents from an Apple-owned laptop.
Two names appear in the suit: a former Apple design executive, now head of hardware at OpenAI, and a second former employee.
Neither Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief, nor Jony Ive, the former Apple design chief who joined the startup after its studio was acquired for $6.5 billion, are personally named in the proceedings.
Apple does not mince words in its legal filings, describing the would-be hardware activity of its rival as being based on legally compromised grounds. The group also asserts that the evidence already on file represents only a fraction of what it holds.
OpenAI Denies Allegations
Facing these accusations, OpenAI says it takes the claims seriously while stressing that it is not aware of any evidence to support the complaint.
Apple says it alerted OpenAI, as early as February, to concerns about a possible leakage of confidential information. A message that reportedly went unanswered.
This legal confrontation marks the rupture of a relationship that had once been strategic.
Apple had signed an agreement with OpenAI in 2024 to integrate ChatGPT technology into Siri, its aging voice assistant. But the collaboration quickly disappointed: OpenAI even reportedly considered taking legal action over the way Apple was using its technology.
In January, Apple moved on by formalizing a partnership with Google, whose AI models now serve as the backbone for the new ChatGPT-style assistant unveiled in June.
The Aim: Consumer Hardware
But the crux of the battle lies in hardware.
OpenAI, which has quietly filed for an initial public offering, is preparing a line of consumer devices driven by AI.
The first expected product is poised to take the form of a connected speaker equipped with microphones and cameras capable of sensing its environment to feed an AI-powered personal assistant that leverages user data. Even before the dispute with Apple opened, commercialization was not expected before next year.
The scale of talent transfer between the two companies is significant. More than 400 former Apple employees now work for OpenAI, including Tang Tan, who helped lead the design of the iPhone and the Apple Watch, now serving as OpenAI’s head of hardware.
Apple goes so far as to accuse OpenAI of training its recruits to bypass internal security procedures when they left.
Another former employee, Chang Liu, is accused of using a former colleague’s work computer to access technical documents and of telling her which information about unannounced products OpenAI was studying before her job interviews there.
It is not the first time Apple has used the courts to protect its secrets. In 2019, it sued Gerard Williams III, its former chief silicon architect who went on to found the startup Nuvia. The suit was eventually dropped in 2023.
Apple is now seeking a restraining order preventing OpenAI from possessing, using, or sharing its trade secrets, as well as the restitution of its intellectual property.
Such actions could weigh heavily on OpenAI’s IPO timetable, whose valuation will also depend on the credibility of its hardware pivot.
