OpenAI Seeks $1 Million From Musk's xAI Over Dismissed Trade Secret Lawsuit

OpenAI asked a judge to find that a lawsuit filed by xAI Corp. accusing the ChatGPT maker of trade secret theft "should never have been filed" and seeks to recoup more than $1 million in legal expenses from Elon Musk's company.

Sam Altman's artificial intelligence startup filed its request Monday, hours after the maker of the Grok chatbot gave notice that it intends to appeal its repeatedly dismissed claims that OpenAI poached employees and encouraged them to steal confidential information.

Monday's developments will likely keep OpenAI's feud with xAI alive for months to come even as a blockbuster suit filed Friday by Apple Inc. levelling similar accusations against OpenAI is just getting under way. OpenAI is poised for an initial public offering in the coming months.

"xAI sued OpenAI first and looked for evidence later, forcing OpenAI to spend substantial resources defeating a sprawling, aggressively litigated trade secret claim for which xAI had no evidentiary support," OpenAI's lawyers wrote.

A lawyer for xAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

A San Francisco federal judge initially dismissed xAI's suit in February, saying the company failed to demonstrate any misconduct by OpenAI and instead merely pointed to eight former xAI employees who left for OpenAI at around the same time.

xAI filed an amended complaint in March after an unsuccessful bid for a six-month extension to bolster its claims. In June, US District Judge Rita Lin again threw out the suit. She said the new allegations - including claims about OpenAI asking a new hire to talk about past work - attempted to paint "routine" parts of the hiring process as nefarious efforts to induce trade secrets theft.

In its suit, the iPhone maker alleges that OpenAI encouraged Apple employees to share information, components, drawings and other materials related to upcoming products - part of efforts by the AI company to develop its own suite of devices. 

Apple is seeking monetary damages and an order requiring OpenAI to halt the alleged conduct and destroy any proprietary materials. Legal remedies could take months or years to materialize.

In response to Apple's complaint, OpenAI said it has "no interest in other companies' trade secrets" and would "remain focused on building innovative technology."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)