A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, which accused rival OpenAI of stealing trade secrets. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco dismissed the case with prejudice on Monday, meaning xAI cannot bring the same claims again.
Originally filed last September, the lawsuit alleged that OpenAI poached a former xAI engineer who worked on the company's Grok chatbot. The suit claimed that former employees took confidential information, including source code, when they left for new positions at OpenAI.
Judge Lin ruled that xAI failed to prove that OpenAI induced former senior engineer Xuechen Li to misappropriate trade secrets. Additionally, the court found no evidence that Li disclosed xAI trade secrets during a presentation delivered while OpenAI was recruiting him.
The judge described continuing the case as futile, noting that an earlier version of the lawsuit had already been dismissed in February. xAI, which is part of Musk's SpaceX, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.