Elon Musk’s AI company xAI just fired off a lawsuit against rival OpenAI, accusing it of stealing trade secrets by poaching former employees. The suit, filed in a California federal court, ramps up the feud between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
xAI claims OpenAI specifically targeted ex-employees who know its inner workings, like the source code for its Grok AI chatbot. The company says OpenAI pushed these hires to break confidentiality agreements and spill details on xAI’s edge in building data centers for AI tech.
The lawsuit points fingers at specific people: former xAI engineer Xuechen Li, who’s already tangled in another dispute with the company; Jimmy Fraiture, another ex-employee; and an unnamed senior finance exec. Media reports highlight how this move fits into the cutthroat battle for AI talent in Silicon Valley.
This isn’t Musk’s first clash with OpenAI. He helped start the company back in 2015 but left in 2018 after failing to take full control. Since then, he’s tried to stop OpenAI from switching to a for-profit model and slammed Altman for teaming up with Microsoft, saying it betrays the group’s original nonprofit mission.
OpenAI fires back that Musk once backed the for-profit idea himself and is just bitter now over their success. Last month, Musk even sued OpenAI and Apple together, claiming Apple’s App Store gives ChatGPT an unfair boost over his own AI tools through anti-competitive tricks.
Apple shot down those claims, stressing that its App Store stays neutral. “It’s built to be fair and unbiased,” the company said, explaining that recommendations come from user charts and standard algorithms, not favoritism.
The drama underscores the fierce AI talent wars heating up among tech giants and startups. Companies like Meta are luring top researchers with big bonuses—Altman recently lost several key OpenAI experts to them. Meanwhile, Musk’s xAI is on the hunt for fresh talent to fuel its growth.
On a global note, India ranks as OpenAI’s second-biggest market after the US, and Altman predicts it could soon take the top spot as AI adoption surges worldwide.
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