US District Court restrains former employee of Elon Musk's xAI from sharing tech with OpenAI

US District Court restrains former employee of Elon Musk's xAI from sharing tech with OpenAI

The billionaire’s lawsuit underscores a race in Silicon Valley among major technology companies to gain AI market share and hire talent for such systems

The US District Court, Northern District of California, has issued a temporary restraining order at the request of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) startup, xAI, prohibiting a former xAI engineer, Xuechen Li, from holding any role or responsibility at OpenAI pertaining to generative AI.

The order of District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco blocked Li from working on or even communicating about AI technology with his new employer, ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

Recently, Musk accused Li of taking trade secrets related to ‘cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT’ to his new job at OpenAI. He said that Li joined xAI last year and helped to train and develop its chatbot Grok. However, in July, he took the trade secrets after accepting a job from OpenAI and selling $7 million in xAI stock.

The court has now barred Li from having any communication about generative AI "with any officer, director, employee, agent, supplier, consultant, or customer of OpenAI."

Judge Lin said the order will last until "xAI has confirmed that all of xAI's confidential information in Li's possession, custody, or control has been deleted."

The judge set a hearing for 7 October 7 to consider whether a longer order should be imposed.

In another case, xAI had sued Apple in the federal court, accusing it of illegally conspiring with OpenAI to suppress rival platforms. Musk is also suing OpenAI over its conversion to a for-profit company.

However, OpenAI countersued Musk in April for harassment.