A judge dismissed a lawsuit from Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI accusing a rival of trying to steal trading secrets — three days after Musk became the world’s first trillionaire.
San Francisco-based federal judge Rita Lin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, dismissed the case Monday after ruling that OpenAI failed to demonstrate that it obtained confidential information from former xAI engineer Xuechen Li. The dismissal marks the new trillionaire’s second courtroom loss against OpenAI in less than a month.
The lawsuit brought against OpenAI stated that in the desire to win the artificial intelligence race to build the best AI model, OpenAI crossed the line by stealing trading secrets from Li, who had admitted to stealing the company’s entire code base, according to the lawsuit. Its complaint revolved around a presentation that Li made to OpenAI who was at the time trying to hire him.
Musk’s xAI is the developer of the chatbot Grok while OpenAI developed and runs ChatGPT.
OpenAI and xAI each did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Musk’s AI company argued that its competitor sought information about the newest model of Grok, the Washington Examiner reported. Lin dismissed the suit’s argument arguing that the discussions did not amount to an attempt to obtain trade secrets.
The trillionaire claimed that OpenAI wanted secrets about the release of Grok 4 because an upcoming update to ChatGPT would not be able to compete with Grok’s capabilities, the Economic Times reported.
Lin dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning saying it would be “futile” to continue, according to the outlet.
Musk’s xAI is a part of his rocket and satellite company SpaceX.
Elon Musk filed SpaceX for initial public offering (IPO) back in May and launched its first shares Friday — leading to him becoming the world’s first trillionaire that day.
Lawyers for OpenAI wrote, “OpenAI does not need or want anyone’s trade secrets, especially not from xAI, which is failing in the marketplace and hemorrhaging talent,” according to the Economic Times.
OpenAI has said Li never worked for them, and they never acquired xAI secrets. Musk’s AI company is suing xAI separately, the outlet reported.
The dismissal comes after a federal judge blocked Musk’s first lawsuit accusing OpenAI and Sam Altman of abandoning their nonprofit mission in the pursuit of profit because Musk took too long to open the suit. Musk helped launch OpenAI in 2015.
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