Elon Musk’s xAI sues former engineer for ‘stealing’ Grok trade secrets and taking them to Sam Altman’s OpenAI: What the lawsuit says

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) startup, xAI, has filed a lawsuit against a former engineer, Xuechen Li, for allegedly stealing confidential information related to its Grok AI chatbot before joining rival company OpenAI. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday (August 28) in a California federal court, alleges that Li misappropriated confidential information about xAI's advanced AI systems, which the company claims possess capabilities exceeding those of OpenAI's ChatGPT platform.

According to the complaint, Li, who joined xAI last year, was a key engineer who helped train and develop the Grok model. The company alleges that Li stole a trove of confidential information and "cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT." This alleged theft occurred in July, shortly after Li accepted a new position at OpenAI and sold approximately $7 million in xAI stock.


The lawsuit claims that the stolen material could provide OpenAI with a significant competitive advantage, potentially allowing it to bolster its own chatbot, ChatGPT, with xAI's "more innovative AI and imaginative features."

The suit seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a restraining order to prevent Li from taking up his new role at OpenAI.

xAI says Li admitted to stealing secrets

According to xAI, Li admitted to stealing company files and attempting to “cover his tracks” during a meeting on August 14. A subsequent investigation by the company reportedly uncovered additional stolen material on his devices that he had not previously disclosed.

This lawsuit is the latest development in the escalating tensions between Elon Musk and OpenAI, a company he co-founded. While OpenAI is not named as a defendant in this particular case, according to news agency Reuters.

This legal action follows another high-profile lawsuit filed by xAI earlier this week against Apple and OpenAI, in which Musk's company accused them of illegally conspiring to monopolize the AI chatbot market on Apple devices.

Notably, these legal battles are in addition to Musk's ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, for allegedly abandoning its founding mission to serve humanity.