Musk's xAI sues engineer for allegedly taking secrets to OpenAI

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/musks-xai-sues-engineer-allegedly-taking-secrets-openai-2025-08-29/

https://archive.is/x91iQ

Aug 29 (Reuters) - 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 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) 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.

 

[Gamergate Retiree]

Oh, but they do. Deepseek, by Chinese hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, is as bad or worse then the others. It's like having your own personal ADL advisor, HR consultant, and diversity commissar.

That can be jailbroken easily, the bros at /aicg/ know how to do it. I just 4.1pus instead.

 

[Genghis Hitler]

Musks' destiny is to be the biggest useful idiot of our lifetime.

 

[Toolbox]

see, spaceX

uh, wat? You talking about the three failed prototype flights, when they already have an established platform in Falcon 9, already used to ship the bulk of what's sent into space with a 99.6% success rate? The last Starship test was a success too. SpaceX can't be easily corrupted by the sirens call of cheap foreign labor, because it's treated as a defense corporation by the fed. Maybe 17 H1Bs were acquired over 13 years. Say what you want about any of his other companies, Musk can't even fuck this one up if he wanted.

 

[Greasy Goblin]

Imagine if this is what redpills Musk.

Not likely. He is an immigrant and thus incapable of viewing America as anything other than an economic zone to be plundered, no matter how much opportunity it gives him.

Like all Africans, he needs to go back.

 

[Berrakh]

It’s so funny to see one’s own racist objections to Chink immigration be proven right.

Especially given the timing of Trump’s 600k Chink students remarks.

 

[NoIdeaWhatImDoing]

what a Chinaman stealing intellectual property? no way.

 

[Retrodogkiller]

Serious answer
Chinese foreign workers steal for ‘grorious peopre’s repubric’
Indians half ass everything and don’t bathe

Indians steal all the time, they're just too incompetent and stupid to understand and implement the shit they steal.

 

[No-Eyed Square Guy]

Is it unusual to be able to metaphorically walk out the door with the entire codebase? I've worked on less important products with more security than that.

I've heard (not reliably, but it sounds true) that literally everyone who "touches code" on AI for Musk is Chinese.

That would explain it.

 

[Brap God]

Imagine if this is what redpills Musk.

This will just send him into a deeper k-hole, if anything.

 

[Drip Torch]

Death to the machines

 

[Burd Turglar]

Hire Chinese employees and you get the Chinese treatment, i wonder what his Indian employees doing behind his back?

Taking a shit in their cubicle.

 

[Headdot Reddot]

uh, wat? You talking about the three failed prototype flights, when they already have an established platform in Falcon 9, already used to ship the bulk of what's sent into space with a 99.6% success rate? The last Starship test was a success too. SpaceX can't be easily corrupted by the sirens call of cheap foreign labor, because it's treated as a defense corporation by the fed. Maybe 17 H1Bs were acquired over 13 years. Say what you want about any of his other companies, Musk can't even fuck this one up if he wanted.

And reusable rockets were an idea before Elon came along. Read up on the DC Delta Clipper project of the early 1990's. Used off the shelf components and had several successful test flights (basically the equivalent of SpaceX's grasshopper but decades earlier.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

Had the program continued to have been funded by Congress they'd likely have had a reusable booster before retiring the Shuttle program. But of course the money men got involved (and of course Mcdonnel Douglas sold out to Boeing which destroyed both companies--thanks bankers!)



Elon had originally wanted to buy old soviet missiles when he started SpaceX. But a rocket scientist familiar with the Delta Clipper program meet with him and encouraged him to go that direction instead. Elon was basically the wallet for reusable rocket tech, which had our Congress in the 1990's been functional (thanks Newt) we the people could've continued funding until the tech matured to the point SpaceX eventually developed it to.

But good thing that private industry did it instead. Only took a nepobaby that got lucky and won the PayPal lottery to finally develop the tech nearly 3 decades after actual scienctist began testing it.

 

[FILTH Tourist]

Indians steal all the time, they're just too incompetent and stupid to understand and implement the shit they steal.

Elon keeps them in check with digital bobs and vagine. If they betray him, they lose access to their blonde white waifu.

 

[Jex]

>Why does spaceX only hire Americans
>Weak answer saying that the US government makes him only hire Americans
>stresses that Tesla hires internationally

Get ching chonged retard

 

[Long Dong Silver 2025]

 

[Toolbox]

Weak answer saying that the US government makes him only hire Americans

Fact check true. If Elon were to have his own way and SpaceX wasn't considered to hold IP as important to national security as Lockheed, he'd jeet it up. Thank god he's not allowed.

 

[Falcon Sebben]

What? The Chinese stole secrets and couldn't be trusted?

I am in complete and utter shock. This has never happened in the history of history itself.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Does AI have any applications outside of making cool wallpaper and poor quality porn yet?

Hardly seems worth stealing.

No. I had it read some documents I really dreaded reading and when I went back and had to read them myself it was totally off.

 

[NoIdeaWhatImDoing]

Indians steal all the time, they're just too incompetent and stupid to understand and implement the shit they steal.

indians just don't want to live in india. To steal intellectual property like that, you have to have a country you want to go back to, plus this country shouldn't have an extradition treaty with the USA. India has one China doesn't.

 

[Soso]

He won't learn from this and invite more.