SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI has urged a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI, which accused OpenAI of poaching employees and stealing trade secrets related to its AI chatbot Grok.
In a filing on Thursday, OpenAI denied the allegations, describing the case as part of Musk’s “ongoing harassment” of the company. “Under Musk’s leadership, talented xAI employees are leaving in droves, and some are coming to OpenAI to help advance OpenAI’s mission,” the filing stated. “Those employees have every right to go where they choose, and OpenAI has the right to hire them.”
The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in San Francisco, claimed OpenAI had engaged in a “deeply troubling pattern” of luring away staff to gain access to Grok’s underlying technology, which xAI argues is more advanced than OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
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Neither Musk’s attorneys nor xAI representatives immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesperson for OpenAI also declined to comment beyond the court filing.
The dispute forms part of a larger legal feud between Musk and OpenAI. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI alongside Sam Altman before leaving the venture, has separately sued the company over its transition to a for-profit model. OpenAI, in turn, has countersued Musk, accusing him of harassment.
Meanwhile, xAI has also filed a separate lawsuit against Apple, alleging the tech giant conspired with OpenAI to suppress rival platforms. Apple and OpenAI have both denied those claims and asked the court to dismiss that case earlier this week.
OpenAI argued on Thursday that the latest lawsuit is an attempt to “intimidate OpenAI and distract from the failures of [Musk’s] own competitive AI effort,” adding: “The truth is that xAI is hemorrhaging talent to other competitors, including OpenAI.”