OpenAI wins dismissal of trade secret lawsuit by Musk's xAI

Space Exploration Technologies

Mon 16:52

    June 15 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI that accused rival Sam Altman's OpenAI of stealing its trade secrets.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco said xAI failed to show that OpenAI induced former xAI engineer Xuechen Li to misappropriate trade secrets or that Li disclosed xAI trade secrets in a presentation he delivered while OpenAI was recruiting him.
Lin dismissed the case with prejudice, saying it would be "futile" for xAI to continue. She dismissed an earlier version of the lawsuit in February.
Originally filed last September, the lawsuit claimed that former xAI employees took confidential information including source code related to the Grok chatbot when they left for new jobs at OpenAI.
The xAI business is part of Musk's rocket, satellite and AI company SpaceX SPCX.O.
Lawyers for xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
     

 (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Mark Porter)
 ((jon.stempel@thomsonreuters.com ; +1 646 223 6317; Reuters Messaging: jon.stempel.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net /))