Musk’s xAI sues ex-employee for allegedly taking tech 'secrets' to OpenAI
- Voltaire Staff
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI has sued a former engineer for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to its Grok chatbot and taking them to rival OpenAI.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in California federal court, accused Xuechen Li of misappropriating confidential information about "cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT" before joining OpenAI earlier this month.
"Li admitted to stealing company files and covering his tracks," the complaint said, adding that investigators later found additional stolen material on his devices.
xAI is seeking monetary damages and a restraining order to block Li’s move to OpenAI.
Li, OpenAI representatives and attorneys for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
OpenAI is not named as a defendant in the case.
The company said Li began working at xAI last year to help train and develop Grok, its flagship chatbot. He allegedly took trade secrets in July after accepting a job with OpenAI and selling USD 7 million worth of xAI stock.
Musk's startup claimed the stolen information could help OpenAI "bolster ChatGPT with xAI's more innovative AI and imaginative features."
The case highlights intensifying rivalry between xAI and OpenAI, which Musk co-founded in 2015 before leaving its board in 2018.
Musk has since become one of OpenAI's fiercest critics, accusing the company and its CEO Sam Altman of abandoning their nonprofit mission to benefit humanity.
Earlier this year, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman in California, claiming they had transformed the company into a for-profit venture tied too closely to Microsoft.
OpenAI countersued in April, accusing Musk of harassment.
On Monday, xAI filed a separate lawsuit in Texas against OpenAI and Apple, alleging they conspired to monopolise the market for AI chatbots on Apple devices through ChatGPT integrations.
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