xAI Sues Former Engineer for Alleged Trade Secret Theft to OpenAI

August 30, 2025
Elon Musk's xAI has filed a lawsuit against a former engineer, Xuechen Li, for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to its Grok chatbot and taking them to OpenAI.

xAI has filed a lawsuit against a former engineer, Xuechen Li, for allegedly stealing trade secrets and taking them to OpenAI. The complaint, filed in a California federal court, accuses Li of taking confidential information related to xAI's Grok chatbot, which is said to have features superior to those offered by ChatGPT, reports Reuters.

The lawsuit claims that Li, after receiving approximately $7 million from xAI, copied sensitive documents from his company-issued laptop to a personal system. It further alleges that Li took measures to conceal his actions by deleting browser history and system logs. The complaint highlights the intense competition among tech companies for AI talent, with xAI and OpenAI being key players in this space.

Li, who joined xAI in early 2024, was among the early engineers working on the Grok model, granting him access to proprietary information. The lawsuit underscores the ongoing rivalry between xAI and OpenAI, as both companies vie for dominance in the AI sector.

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