Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has sued rival OpenAI in California federal court over alleged theft of its trade secrets to gain an unfair advantage in the race to develop artificial intelligence technology.

The lawsuit filed on Wednesday said Sam Altman’s OpenAI is engaging in a “deeply troubling pattern" of hiring former xAI employees to gain access to trade secrets related to its AI chatbot Grok. xAI said it discovered the campaign while probing allegations of trade secret theft against former engineer Xuechen Li.

“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

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