now, I’m no business guy but this seems pretty bad for a pre-IPO OpenAI
More links: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/apple-openai-lawsuit-trade-secrets.html
https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-trade-secret-theft/
From the headlines I had been assuming it was a normal tech company patent troll slap fight but no… from the 9to5mac article:
When interviewing Apple employees for jobs at OpenAI, Mr. Tan uses Apple’s confidential information to gain access to even more insider knowledge. He has used an Apple internal project codename to ask, “What’s the plan[?]” for an unannounced Apple product.
He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information. These directions to bring Apple’s parts to OpenAI job interviews surprised at least one of the candidates, who commented that he “didn’t even know we could take those from the office.”
OpenAI has been instructing Apple employees to bring “CAD/design artifacts” and “prototypes” to their interviews and to divulge details about their work such as “subsystem and component selection,” the “tools or methodologies you use for system integration, such as CAD software, simulation tools,” and “Vendor selection and communication/collaboration with vendors.”
That is absolutely batshit. Like I’ve heard the interview process has been getting worse and worse, but “steal shit from your current company” is on another level. I wonder if he lead in with any plausible deniability to it or just straight up jumped to that. Also, I have a hard time imagining being willing to steal from a company just to get through an interview at another company. Not out of company loyalty, but because I wouldn’t trust the interviewers to actually pay-up with a cushy job and salary.
And for anyone skimming the comments instead of reading the articles, that is just one of two people Apple’s lawsuit references, there is another high level OpenAI person with a completely different set of egregious corporate espionage actions!

