Final Judge Dismisses xAI's Lawsuit Against OpenAI: Predecessor Interview Questions Considered Standard Recruitment Practice, Not Inducement to Leak

According to Insight Beating monitoring, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin of San Francisco issued a final ruling rejecting xAI, an artificial intelligence company owned by Elon Musk, in its trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI, and ruled that xAI is not allowed to refile the lawsuit. The judge stated that xAI failed to prove that OpenAI instructed former xAI senior engineer Li Xuechen to disclose secrets of the Grok chatbot, nor could xAI prove that OpenAI's technical staff were aware of Li Xuechen's potential disclosure of related information.

The dispute stemmed from Li Xuechen presenting a PowerPoint during an interview with OpenAI. xAI accused OpenAI of trying to obtain the secrets of the Grok 4 model (July 2025 release version) during the interview, claiming that OpenAI was lagging behind in complex reasoning and reinforcement learning technologies. However, the judge ruled in the judgment that inquiring about a job applicant's past work experience during recruitment is a standard industry practice. Qualifying interview discussions as infringement would expose all employers to legal risks when conducting interviews.

The dismissal of the lawsuit means Musk has encountered a second defeat against OpenAI within four weeks. On May 18, a federal jury ruled against Musk in another lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of deviating from their non-profit mission and claiming $150 billion. Currently, OpenAI stated that Li Xuechen ultimately did not join the company, and OpenAI never obtained xAI's secrets; Li Xuechen himself, although sued by xAI in a separate case, has denied any misconduct.