283 people have left Apple for OpenAI, according to their public profiles — and 82% of them made the jump in the last twelve months. Here is who they are, when they moved, and what happens to an Apple job title when it lands at OpenAI.
OpenAI hired the occasional Apple engineer for years. The corridor changed character in August 2025 and hasn’t slowed since: OpenAI added more ex-Apple employees in the first half of 2026 (156) than in all prior years combined (125), peaking at 30 in February 2026 — roughly one former Apple employee starting at OpenAI every working day. And so far it is one-directional: not one of the 283 has gone back.
| Month | Moves |
|---|---|
| July 2024 | 3 |
| August 2024 | 0 |
| September 2024 | 1 |
| October 2024 | 3 |
| November 2024 | 2 |
| December 2024 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 4 |
| February 2025 | 2 |
| March 2025 | 1 |
| April 2025 | 2 |
| May 2025 | 5 |
| June 2025 | 3 |
| July 2025 | 3 |
| August 2025 | 17 |
| September 2025 | 5 |
| October 2025 | 18 |
| November 2025 | 17 |
| December 2025 | 17 |
| January 2026 | 29 |
| February 2026 | 30 |
| March 2026 | 28 |
| April 2026 | 22 |
| May 2026 | 26 |
| June 2026 | 21 |
| July 2026 | 2 |
| Before July 2024 (total) | 22 |
Normalize the 232 job titles these people held at Apple and the picture is unambiguous: the single largest group is hardware engineering — camera, audio, sensors, silicon, product design. Add supply-chain operations and the program managers who ship physical products, and 125 people — 44% of the entire corridor — look like the org chart of a company gearing up to build hardware.
The iPhone, camera, and audio clusters map cleanly to a consumer-device skill set; the AI/Siri cluster suggests Apple’s own AI org is represented too.
Functions normalized from free-text Apple titles · examples are representative, not exhaustive
Titles only — no names, and lightly generalized. The list reads as more than an engineering raid: OpenAI has hired people who led iPhone product marketing, produced Apple’s keynotes, managed its brand, handled its government affairs in Europe, and ran corners of its supply chain. Taken together, it looks less like a hiring spree than a playbook transplant — 47 of the 283 came from the design, creative, marketing, and events organization alone.
Role examples generalized from public profile titles · month granularity · no names published
Apple encodes hierarchy in names — senior, staff, principal, manager, director. OpenAI mostly doesn’t. More than half of everyone in this dataset, whatever they did at Apple, now carries the same title: Member of Technical Staff.
For 75% of these moves, the OpenAI start month on the profile is the same month the Apple role ends — a direct walk across the street. 90% start within 90 days, 6 profiles list stints that overlap outright — and none of the 283 have returned to Apple. This appears to be direct recruitment out of Cupertino, not opportunistic hiring of people who had already left.
| Gap between Apple end and OpenAI start | People |
|---|---|
| Same month | 213 |
| 1–31 days | 29 |
| 32–90 days | 7 |
| 91–180 days | 6 |
| Over 180 days | 22 |
| Overlapping stints | 6 |
Only 22 people (8%) waited more than six months — this points to direct recruitment, not re-hiring of alumni
Press inquiries welcome — the aggregate tables above are available on request.
Inkling tracks moves like these between the companies you care about — who’s arriving, who’s leaving, and who’s quietly getting ready to — from public profile changes, as they happen.
Disclaimer. The information on this page is compiled solely from publicly available sources, including self-reported professional profiles, and is provided for informational and journalistic purposes only. Figures represent Inkling’s independent analysis of that public data and do not represent official headcounts, statements, or disclosures from Apple Inc. or OpenAI, and neither company has reviewed, endorsed, or verified this content. Employment dates and job titles are self-reported by individuals and may be incomplete, delayed, or inaccurate; actual figures may differ. Job titles and organizational groupings have been normalized by Inkling for analysis and may not reflect official internal designations. Nothing here should be read as implying any unlawful conduct by any company or individual, or as a statement about any individual’s reason for changing employers. Apple and OpenAI are trademarks of their respective owners; their use here is for identification only and does not imply affiliation or endorsement. This page will be updated or corrected as new information becomes available. Corrections: [email protected].