OpenAI has been on a recruiting tear, supercharging its headcount and yanking top AI talent from other tech companies. Now, Apple says the AI juggernaut has been playing dirty with its recruitment tactics.
The Cupertino tech giant accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets in a lawsuit filed Friday that also targeted its hardware outfit, IO, and two former Apple employees who worked at OpenAI. The lawsuit marks a dramatic escalation in the AI talent wars, where competition for elite engineers has become almost as fierce as the race to build smarter models.
The complaint accuses OpenAI of using various stages of the recruitment process to extract sensitive information from the iPhone maker.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI recruiters reportedly told job candidates to study confidential Apple documents and prepare “Technical Deep Dive” presentations on their work at Apple, according to the lawsuit. One executive asked a candidate to bring physical Apple parts to interviews for “show and tell” sessions, the lawsuit alleges. The complaint lists some of the requested parts: batteries, logic boards, and glass samples.
The lawsuit claims that one job candidate “expressed concern over OpenAI’s tactics, noting he was ‘surprised people have brought’ Apple parts to interviews because he ‘didn’t know we could take those from the office.'”
Apple is also alleging that OpenAI’s interviewers would “probe for secret information” during the recruitment process, including by asking for explanations about vendors, suppliers, and engineering strategies.
The lawsuit called these actions “knowing and deliberate” and also alleged that OpenAI interviewers would use secret Apple code names.
Apple wrote in its lawsuit that it had found incriminating messages on workers’ company-issued laptops.
Tang Tan, a former Apple employee and current OpenAI hardware chief named as a defendant in the lawsuit, is a central figure in his ex-employer’s allegations.
In the complaint, Apple alleges that Tan used an Apple document outlining offboarding procedures to warn recruited employees about Apple’s forensic and security checks. The complaint alleges that OpenAI told workers leaving Apple that they wouldn’t be asked to sign anything during their exit interviews.
“Unsurprisingly, Apple has uncovered a concerning recent pattern among employees who depart and then go work for OpenAI,” the lawsuit says.
It continues: “Departing employees have been taking actions to evade security measures, such as failing to provide two weeks’ notice, and ignoring outreach by security personnel to schedule exit processes and security reviews, all of which may help to conceal the misuse and misappropriation of confidential information.”
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