The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) · Thursday, July 16, 2026
Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging trade secret theft. The suit names Tani Tang, a senior executive at OpenAI and a former Apple veteran, and Chang Lu, a six-year Apple employee. The core allegation is that Lu took proprietary information from Apple to OpenAI, with Tang allegedly encouraging this action.
“So, number one, Apple sues Open AI for trade secret theft.”
“Essentially, one of Apple's long term 24 years vets was taking secret to Open AI and sharing information that he shouldn't have been.”
“The person on point, the individual who brought that stuff across. I went to the law suit this morning, 41 pages, didn't read it all, but got through a good slog of it. There's a lot of fact-based evidence that the person who took this stuff did it and he screwed.”