Paul Meade, a senior hardware executive who led Apple’s Vision Pro engineering team, is exiting the company to take charge of OpenAI’s emerging hardware division, according to a Bloomberg report. Meade is expected to leave Apple by next week and will be tasked at OpenAI with developing a new line of devices designed around AI.
Meade’s role at Apple was central to the company’s spatial computing roadmap. He spent seven years leading hardware engineering for Vision Pro and was guiding work on a display-free smart glasses project that was positioned to compete with Meta next year. His departure creates what the report describes as a substantial gap in leadership within Apple’s Vision Products Group.
Management of the Vision Products Group will transfer to Fletcher Rothkopf, who had been serving as Meade’s deputy. Neither Apple nor OpenAI has offered an official statement on the personnel change.
The movement of Meade to OpenAI is characterized in the report as a notable acquisition of talent. The article places his move alongside other high-profile departures from Apple - including Jony Ive, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey - whose AI hardware startup was acquired by OpenAI last year for $6.5 billion. The piece frames Meade’s hiring as part of a broader effort by OpenAI to assemble a hardware team with experience drawn from Apple’s design and engineering ranks.
At OpenAI, Meade is charged with spearheading efforts to create AI-native devices. The report indicates OpenAI is building out hardware capabilities and that Meade will play a leading role in that work.
The report’s account highlights two concrete transitions: the loss of a long-tenured hardware lead at Apple and the appointment of that lead to a senior hardware role at OpenAI. It notes the immediate operational change at Apple, with Rothkopf stepping into management of the Vision Products Group, and the strategic hiring for OpenAI as it seeks to expand into consumer and product hardware around AI.
Neither firm has confirmed the details publicly, and the timeline given in the report indicates Meade will depart Apple by the coming week.