Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is suing a former engineer, Xuechen Li, for allegedly stealing trade secrets about its Grok chatbot and taking them to his new job at rival firm OpenAI. The lawsuit was filed on Thursday in California federal court and claims Li took confidential information about advanced AI features that xAI says are better than those in ChatGPT. According to the lawsuit, Li joined xAI as an engineer last year and played a key role in training and building Grok.
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However, in July, after accepting a job offer from OpenAI and selling $7 million worth of xAI stock, he allegedly took sensitive files from the company. Interestingly, xAI says that Li admitted to stealing the information and trying to cover his tracks during a meeting on August 14. Furthermore, the company later discovered more stolen data on his devices that he hadn’t mentioned. It’s worth noting that this is not the first legal clash between Musk and OpenAI.
Indeed, Musk, who helped start OpenAI, previously sued the company and its CEO, Sam Altman, after claiming that they had strayed from their mission of benefiting humanity. OpenAI later countersued Musk for harassment. In addition, just this week, xAI sued OpenAI and Apple (AAPL) in Texas, accusing them of trying to dominate the AI chatbot market on Apple devices. Nevertheless, in this latest lawsuit, xAI is asking the court for financial damages and a restraining order to stop Li from joining OpenAI.
What Is the Prediction for Tesla Stock?
When it comes to Elon Musk’s companies, most of them are privately held. However, retail investors can invest in his most popular company, Tesla (TSLA). Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 13 Buys, 15 Holds, and eight Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average TSLA price target of $305.37 per share implies 8.3% downside risk.
