Apple vs. OpenAI: An ugly battle over hardware

Apple just declared war on OpenAI, said Rolfe Winkle in The Wall Street Journal. In a lawsuit filed last week, the iPhone maker accused the artificial-intelligence startup of a corporate espionage campaign “at every level.” It claims that former Apple engineer Chang Liu kept a company MacBook after joining OpenAI and exploited a software flaw to access Apple servers and download privileged data—while allegedly bragging about it. “LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny,” said Liu in one text message. Apple also alleges that OpenAI’s hardware chief, Tang Tan, who worked at Apple for 24 years as a key product designer, solicited confidential information from current and former Apple employees during interviews and even encouraged poached employees to bring “actual parts” for “show and tell.” Tan has worked closely with Jony Ive, the industrial artist who designed the iPhone, at io products, which OpenAI bought in 2025 to develop “a mystery device” aimed at supplanting existing smartphones. OpenAI said that it takes the allegations in Apple’s suit “seriously,” but is “not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit.”

This is just Apple’s m.o., said Patrick McGee in The Free Press. It’s “not the first time Apple used litigation as a weapon.” In 2010, Steve Jobs declared “thermonuclear war” on Google after calling Android devices a “stolen product.” Tim Cook “looks to be using the same playbook.” But Apple isn’t upset only about the fact that “OpenAI harbors ambitions to be a hardware company.” It’s that OpenAI is pursuing them “with former Apple employees it has been relentlessly poaching.” Twice now “OpenAI has aligned itself with a leading tech giant,” said Peter Kafka in Business Insider, “and ended up in a messy breakup.” The first big rift was with Microsoft, which was OpenAI’s most crucial ally—until OpenAI started making deals with Amazon behind Microsoft’s back. Apple, too, once had an agreement to integrate ChatGPT into its iPhone software. But that ended once it became clear OpenAI was building an iPhone rival. It’s a disturbing pattern that raises questions about the AI firm’s leadership. If I’m a Big Tech executive who’s working with OpenAI, I’d have many “reasons to fret.”

The timing couldn’t be worse for OpenAI, said Hayden Field in The Verge. Most AI leaders have “at least one lawsuit or accusation to their name.” But for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, it’s been a “roller-coaster six months full of drama.” The company has faced multiple lawsuits, including ones from co-founder Elon Musk, the families of young people negatively affected by ChatGPT, and The New York Times over copyright infringement. Altman said he’s “not afraid of Apple,” but perhaps he should be. Apple is a “tenacious litigant” that doesn’t like to back down.

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OpenAI never stood a chance of toppling the iPhone anyway, said Dave Lee in Bloomberg. The challenges—from design to integration to mass production and distribution—“are insurmountable.” It wanted a big consumer splash to pair with its initial public offering. But Apple has perhaps forced OpenAI “to give up the folly sooner rather than later,” a change of course that could save it “billions of its desperately needed dollars.” It may look back at this episode as a blessing in disguise.