xAI Musk sues former employee for stealing Grok secrets

Elon Musk's company xAI is accusing former employee Xucheng Li of stealing confidential information and trade secrets related to the Grok AI platform, according to a lawsuit filed in late August, Engadget reports.

According to xAI, before being fired, Lee copied documents from his work laptop to his own devices and "took steps to cover his tracks," including renaming and compressing files and deleting his browser history. The company says the stolen data involves "advanced technologies that outperform ChatGPT and other products" and could give competitors an advantage, saving "billions of dollars and years of development."

Lee then allegedly asked xAI to buy out his stake for about $7 million and then joined OpenAI. The lawsuit seeks a temporary injunction requiring the former employee to hand over all personal devices and cloud storage and return confidential materials. xAI also seeks a temporary injunction barring Lee from working at OpenAI or any other company until the data is returned.

The lawsuit comes amid a "war for talent" between leading AI companies. For example, Meta offered OpenAI employees compensation packages of up to $300 million to switch. Also recently, xAI sued OpenAI and Apple, accusing them of trying to create a monopoly in the AI market.