xAI accuses OpenAI of stealing its trade secrets in new lawsuit

Elon Musk’s xAI is suing OpenAI, alleging that the ChatGPT maker has stolen its trade secrets. The lawsuit comes after the company recently sued a former employee, Xuechen Li, for allegedly stealing confidential information from the company before taking a job at OpenAI.

In its latest lawsuit, which was reported by Sherwood, xAI says that Li’s alleged actions are part of “a broader and deeply troubling pattern of trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and intentional interference with economic relationships by OpenAI.” According to xAI’s lawyers, OpenAI also hired two other xAI employees who stole proprietary information from Musk’s company.

“Another early xAI engineer—Jimmy Fraiture—was also harvesting xAI’s source code and airdropping it to his personal devices to take to OpenAI, where he now works,” the lawsuit states. “Meanwhile, a senior finance executive brought another piece of the puzzle to OpenAI—xAI’s ‘secret sauce’ of rapid data center deployment—with no intention to abide by his legal obligations to xAI.”

“This new lawsuit is the latest chapter in Mr Musk’s ongoing harassment. We have no tolerance for any breaches of confidentiality, nor any interest in trade secrets from other labs,” OpenAI said in a statement the company shared with Engadget.

Musk, of course, has a complicated history with the ChatGPT maker, and this isn’t the first time his rival AI company has sued OpenAI. Last month, xAI filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Apple over Grok’s placement on App Store charts. Musk alleged that ChatGPT rank in the top spot represented an “unequivocal antitrust violation.” Musk has also filed numerous lawsuits against OpenAI over its relationship with Microsoft and its move to become a for-profit company.

Update 2:49 PM ET: Added comment from OpenAI.