By Nitin Waghela
Copyright republicworld
Elon Musk’s AI venture, xAI, has taken legal action against OpenAI, alleging that its rival firm has been hiring xAI employees to gather access to trade secrets linked to its chatbot, Grok.As per the lawsuit filed against OpenAI on September 23, 2025 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, “OpenAI is targeting those individuals with knowledge of xAI’s key technologies and business plans, including xAI’s source code and its operational advantages in launching data centres, then inducing those employees to breach their confidentiality and other obligations to xAI through unlawful means.”This is the latest legal action the Musk-led enterprise has taken against its ex-business partner Sam Altman after several lawsuits against OpenAI in recent years.The complaint also claimed that OpenAI hired an unidentified senior finance executive and former business engineer, Jimmy Fraiture, to gather xAI trade secrets.This also included a screenshot of an email dated July to a former xAI employee received by Alex Spiro, Musk’s and xAI’s lawyer, accusing the individual of violating their confidentiality agreements.Commenting on the lawsuit Musk wrote, “We sent them many warning letters, but they continued to cheat. Lawsuit was the only option after exhausting all others.”Musk, who is involved in numerous lawsuits both as a plaintiff and a defendant, sued OpenAI and Apple last month over alleged anti-competitive behaviour and Apple’s preference for ChatGPT in its App Store. The suit claims that his competitors engaged in “a conspiracy to monopolise the markets for smartphones and generative AI chatbots.”Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, however the xAI boss left the board in 2018 after an unsuccessful bid to gain control of the organisation.In February, OpenAI rejected Musk’s $97.4 billion offer to acquire the nonprofit company. Taking to X, OpenAI Board Chair Bret Taylor described Musk’s bid as “an attempt to disrupt his competition.”“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” he added.
