Apple alleges that Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer and a former Apple VP, has directed Apple staffers interviewing at OpenAI to share Apple secrets
CNBC
Context & Ripple Effects
The related coverage places this allegation within Apple’s broader lawsuit against OpenAI, including a separate claim involving a former Apple engineer’s retained work laptop and access to Apple cloud storage. Bloomberg’s coverage also frames the dispute against pre-existing tension between Tang Tan and former Apple boss John Ternus.
Taken together, the reports make the issue more than a single employee departure: Apple is alleging that personnel movement to OpenAI’s hardware organization may have exposed proprietary information during a period of heightened competition for experienced device talent.
First-order effects
Apple’s allegations put Tang Tan and OpenAI’s hardware recruiting practices under immediate legal and reputational scrutiny.
Apple can use the claimed interview-related conduct alongside the separate former-engineer allegations to press its case that its confidential material requires stronger protection.
Second-order effects
OpenAI may face pressure to demonstrate cleaner onboarding, interview, and information-handling controls for hires from competitors, particularly in hardware roles.
Other companies competing for specialized hardware staff may tighten candidate screening and separation procedures to reduce trade-secret litigation risk.
Third-order effects
If disputes of this kind recur, competition for AI-device talent could become increasingly mediated by legal safeguards around employee mobility rather than recruiting alone.
The case points to a broader collision between rapid AI hardware buildouts and incumbents’ efforts to enforce confidentiality boundaries; the eventual legal record will determine how far that constraint reaches.
The trend: AI companies’ push to assemble hardware teams is increasing the strategic and legal importance of talent mobility, confidential-information controls, and post-employment boundaries.
I don't get how you can spend 24 years at a company like Apple, lead development of ground-breaking technology like the iMac, iPhone and Apple Watch, and then steal trade secrets on your way out to get pre-IPO OpenAI shares, screwing the company you helped build.
Who actually believes Jony Ive and Evans Hankey weren't aware of what Tang Tan was illegally doing? Sure they're not named in the lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI but come on
The more I read of the Apple lawsuit against Liu and Tan, the less it seems like Apple is trying to sue OpenAI and more they are suing those two and OpenAI is included to make sure Apple IP doesn't make it into their production We'll see, I don't expect this to be super dramatic
Apple corpsec though: * A departing employee allegedly kept an Apple-issued laptop * His access was apparently not revoked * He could still reach shared storage through an authentication flaw * He could use a current employee's device. * They didn't detect this for WEEKS 🤡🤡🤡
Okay. Read the lawsuit. The named dude (Liu) is gonna get nailed to the wall; they've got him dead to rights. The accusations against OpenAI itself are a hell of a lot more tenuous.
The dude though, yikes. Retained access to Apple systems post departure (great job Apple Corp Infosec; take a bow!), told other Apple folks to bring stuff with them. But no evidence yet that OpenAI as an entity sanctioned this.
BREAKING: Apple is suing OpenAI, accusing it and its hardware chief of a coordinating trade secret theft campaign to help build its upcoming suite of AI devices.
“What a crap company with bad ethics” is quite the statement from Apple though, given the current native first party integration to iOS. My dude, you partnered with them.
OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan allegedly helped coach recruits on how to evade Apple's data security protocols and directed them to bring confidential Apple parts to job interviews at OpenAI. @ZeffMax https://www.wired.com/...