Hyderabad, July 12 -- Apple has taken OpenAI to court. On 10 July 2026 it filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Northern California, accusing the ChatGPT company of stealing trade secrets to build its upcoming AI hardware device. The suit charges OpenAI with trade secret theft and breach of contract. It also names two former Apple employees who now work at OpenAI, plus io Products, the hardware startup OpenAI bought last year for close to 6.5 billion dollars.

Apple put ChatGPT inside the iPhone in 2024, and Sam Altman turned up at Apple's campus for the launch. That warmth is gone. OpenAI decided to build its own hardware, the relationship cooled, and now they are in a courtroom.

What Apple says happened

The company says the alleged th...