Apple has sued OpenAI. Apple claims OpenAI stole trade secrets.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in a California federal court. It names OpenAI and its hardware venture io Products.

It also names two former Apple workers. They are Chang Liu and Tang Tan.

Liu was a senior engineer at Apple. Tan now leads hardware at OpenAI.

He used to be a top product designer at Apple. Apple says the two men misused secrets to help OpenAI build consumer devices.

That device effort is led by Jony Ive. Ive is Apple's former chief design officer.

Apple claims Tan told job candidates to bring real Apple parts to interviews. Apple also says Tan used secret codenames to pull out information.

Apple claims Liu downloaded over a thousand pages of private files. This happened after Liu left Apple.

Apple says this kind of misconduct is normal at OpenAI. Apple blames OpenAI's leadership for allowing it.

OpenAI said it has no interest in other companies' trade secrets. The lawsuit follows the collapse of a 2024 deal between the two companies.

Under that deal Apple planned to add ChatGPT to iPhone software. That partnership has since fallen apart.

Reports say OpenAI had also considered suing Apple over the same deal. OpenAI's own AI device is expected to launch later this year.