XAI D'Elon Musk continues Openai for alleged flight of commercial secret in a context of persistent rivalry in AI

The battle between Elon Musk and Openai takes a new turn. This time, the own startup of Musk, XAI, brought legal action to a federal court in California, saying that Optai stole its commercial secrets to obtain an advantage in the development of artificial intelligence.

Alleged flight of commercial secrets by former XAI employees

The complaint alleys that Optaai has violated Californian and federal laws by inciting former XAI employees to take and share confidential documents. The deposit appoints researcher Xuechen Li, engineer Jimmy Fraiture and a senior manager in finance such as the employees involved. XAI maintains that by recruiting these individuals and accessing sensitive information, Openai has acquired knowledge giving it a unfair competitive advantage.

The complaint details a series of incidents where Tifa Chen d'Opnai would have communicated with Li via the signal messaging application. According to XAI, Li has downloaded all the company's source code to a personal cloud account, deleted the proofs of this action, then downloaded the equipment to its laptop. On July 28, Openai would have offered millions of dollars in exchange for the code. The press release said:

Chen communicated the OpenAi offer of several million dollars. This huge bonus was the Donant of Openai-the Xai source code and the presentation he stolen from XAI-and was part of the wider plan of Openai to obtain access to critical and secret information from XAI in order to neutralize XAI while providing an unfair advantage to Openai to the detriment of consumers.

XAI also says that Li later admitted to having taken confidential information. The company wrote that “Li, in the presence of his lawyer, admitted to a handwritten document that he provided to Xai that he diverted the XAI source code and the presentation on the very valued training and adjustment techniques of XAI. »»

The trial also alleys that Fraiture has committed similar driving by transferring XAI confidential files from his professional laptop to a personal device via Airdrop. There would have been at least five transfers or attempts on July 31, and the complaint notes that Fraiture admitted to having kept a copy of confidential files on his personal computer for several weeks.

Legal experts give their opinion on the XAI dispute against Openai

Legal experts offer their perspective on the case and what it could mean for the two companies:

• Ishita Sharma, managing partner at Fathom Legal, said XAI will have to largely define its trade secretscovering the code as well as the strategic and operational elements.
• Sharma noted that the involvement of recruiters adds complexity, because the responsibility depends on whether they have acted on behalf of Openai and if the company was aware of their actions.
• She explained that Optai could defend herself by proving independent development, supported by horodated recordings such as Git commits, research notes, supplier invoices or e-mails.
• NavoDaya Singh Rajpurohit, legal partner at Coinque Consulting, said that the case relates to the debauchery of employees, and that the illegal nature depends on evidence beyond what appears in the file.

Openai qualifies the harassment trial of Musk

OPENAI A denied allegationsa spokesperson for society describing the trial as a part of what it calls Musk's continuous harassment and saying that the accusations are false.

This case adds a new chapter to a broader legal conflict between Musk and Openai. Musk, who co-founded Openai in 2015 and left the Board of Directors in 2018, had previously prosecuted the company for its passage to a for-profit structure, while Openai has deposited a counter-pours for harassment.