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02-09-2025
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has sued a former engineer at the company for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to its Grok chatbot and taking them to rival OpenAI.
Musk’s company said in the complaint, opens new tab filed on Thursday in California federal court that Xuechen Li stole confidential information related to “cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT” to bring to his new job at OpenAI earlier this month.
Li, representatives of OpenAI and attorneys and spokespersons for xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. OpenAI is not a defendant.
The complaint underscores the rivalry between Musk’s company and OpenAI and a fierce battle among tech companies for AI talent.
Musk, an OpenAI co-founder, has separately sued the company and its CEO, Sam Altman, for allegedly deviating from its original mission to benefit humanity. OpenAI countersued Musk in April for harassment.
Musk’s xAI filed another lawsuit against OpenAI and Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab in Texas on Monday for allegedly monopolizing the market for AI chatbots on Apple devices.
The new lawsuit said Li began working as an engineer for xAI last year, where he helped train and develop Grok. The company said Li took its trade secrets in July, shortly after accepting a job from OpenAI and selling $7 million in xAI stock.
Musk’s startup said that the secrets could allow OpenAI to bolster ChatGPT with xAI’s “more innovative AI and imaginative features.”
The lawsuit said Li admitted to stealing company files and “covering his tracks” during a meeting on August 14 and that the company later found additional stolen material on his devices that he had not disclosed.
Musk’s AI Company asked the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a restraining order blocking Li’s move to OpenAI.
In March, last year, Elon Musk had sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, saying they abandoned the startup’s original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit.
The lawsuit filed late on Thursday in California Superior Court in San Francisco is a culmination of Musk’s long-simmering opposition to the startup he co-founded. OpenAI has since become the face of generative AI, partly due to billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab. Musk went on to found his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, launched last July.
Musk’s lawsuit alleges a breach of contract, saying Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman originally approached him to make an open source, non-profit company, but the startup established in 2015 is now focused on making money.
Musk said OpenAI’s three founders originally agreed to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI), a concept that machines could handle tasks like a human but in a way that would “benefit humanity,” according to the lawsuit.
OpenAI would also work in opposition to Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, which Musk said he believed was developing AGI for profit and would pose grave risks.
Instead, OpenAI “set the founding agreement aflame” in 2023 when it released its most powerful language model GPT-4 as essentially a Microsoft product, the lawsuit alleged.
Musk has sought a court ruling that would compel OpenAI to make its research and technology available to the public and prevent the startup from using its assets, including GPT-4, for financial gains of Microsoft or any individual. (Int’l News Desk)
