Tang Tan
Tang Tan is a mechanical engineer who serves as Chief Hardware Officer at OpenAI, a role he assumed after OpenAI acquired the hardware startup io in July 2025. He previously spent nearly 24 years at Apple, where he rose to Vice President of Product Design for the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, leading a team of over 900 engineers. He holds more than 20 patents related to device enclosures and precision component assembly and is a graduate of Imperial College London and MIT.
“The 24-year veteran is Tang Tang. And he's named in the suit. But the person who is alleged to have taken the secrets was the six-year Apple employee, Cheng Liu. Tang Tang is in charge of the hardware division at OpenAI after having been a super senior executive at Apple.”
Source→AI-extracted from podcast / newsletter / paper summaries. May contain errors.