The Malaysian-born engineer at the centre of Apple’s trade secrets suit against OpenAI
In case you missed the big news that happened over the weekend, Apple is suing OpenAI for trade secret theft. Cupertino is alleging that the AI company planned a ‘coordinated campaign’ to steal information from them regarding unreleased products. The lawsuit also names Tang Tan specifically, the current chief hardware officer at OpenAI.
Tan, born Tan Tang Yew, was born in Malaysia, and studied at La Salle Klang, before doing his A Levels in Singapore. Tan later went on to Imperial College London to study Mechanical Engineering, and then to MIT to complete his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
Tan then joined Apple in March 1999, beginning a 25-year run at Cupertino as a product designer, working on everything from the first couple of iPods and Apple AIrPort, before moving on to the iPhone. He ended his time as the Vice President of iPhone & Apple Watch Product Design, Acoustics, Materials and Interconnects Design at Apple, before departing in February 2024.
During his tenure at Apple, Tan gained a reputation for taking risks. According to someone who had worked with Tan at Apple, Tang often ‘flew very close to the sun’, and is well known for ‘playing fast and loose and breaking things’. While Tan wasn’t the main man, he was key figure in the design and engineering team, working towards building prototypes and the final product at scale. He would end up having his name on over 20 publicly listed Apple patents, on things like ‘cold-worked stainless steel bodies and flush bezels’, to ‘moisture-resistant openings, liquid-resistant SIM tray and coatings’.
You might be wondering then: if he had such a long history at Apple, why did Tan leave? It seems that Tan didn’t exactly get along with John Ternus, the man who beat Tan for the Senior VP of Hardware Engineering job at Apple in 2021. You might have heard of Ternus of course, as he’s set to takeover as Apple CEO in September. Reports suggest that Tan had a ‘strained relationship’ with Ternus, and that some members of the hardware design team did actually back Tan over Ternus for the role.
In December 2023, it was announced that Tan had resigned from his role, though as part of the transition he stayed on till February 2024. He left to form an AI hardware startup called Io, together with former Apple employees Jony Ive and Evans Hankey. OpenAI would then go on to acquire Io last year for USD6.5 billion, with all Io employees becoming OpenAI employees instead.
According to Apple’s lawsuit, Tan, as chief hardware officer at OpenAI, openly encouraged Apple employees who were interviewing for a role at OpenAI to provide information about upcoming products in these interviews.
Specifically, Apple alleges that Tan would mention Apple’s confidential internal project code names during job interviews, which only insiders would know of, encouraged them to study up on confidential materials prior to interviews and even asked them to bring actual Apple components like components and drawings when meeting for interviews. Tan reportedly even made a checklist for departing Apple employees moving to OpenAI, helping them move information while avoiding Apple’s security.
Incidentally, another former Apple engineer specifically named in the lawsuit is Chang Liu. Liu reportedly left Apple with a company-issued MacBook, and used a software bug to continue accessing Apple’s network storage. He went on to download sensitive information such as presentations, hardware designs and manufacturing details while already working at OpenAI.
OpenAI, for their part, has stated that they have ‘no interest in other companies’ trade secrets’, and that they remain focused on building their own ‘innovative’ technology.
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