Recently, Musk revealed that the entire codebase of his company xAI was stolen. This news shocked the technology industry, and xAI has sued a former employee, accusing him of stealing the company's trade secrets and having joined the competitor OpenAI.
The involved former employee is named Xuechen Li, who was one of the core members of xAI. According to the complaint filed by xAI with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Li faces four charges: breaching a non-disclosure agreement, misappropriating trade secrets, violating California's computer data laws, and fraud. xAI requests the court to issue an injunction prohibiting Li from working at competitors like OpenAI and to have him return all stolen data.
The incident traces back to Li's resignation from xAI on July 28. Three days before his resignation, he had already uploaded a large amount of company data to his personal system. Notably, before leaving, Li also cashed out his xAI shares, gaining nearly $7 million in profit. Although Li signed documents upon leaving, promising to return company property and delete all copies, he still took various measures to cover up his act of stealing secrets.
According to xAI's investigation, on August 11, the company's security software detected signs of data leakage and sent a letter to Li demanding him to return the stolen information. However, instead of cooperating, Li changed the passwords of the accounts storing the stolen data, trying to prevent the company from accessing and recovering it. During the admission of stealing secrets, Li's lawyer was present, but he still concealed several key pieces of information.
It is worth noting that Li had already received an offer from OpenAI before leaving and joined the company on August 19. In the lawsuit, xAI stated that the trade secrets Li is suspected of stealing include "cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies that surpass ChatGPT and other competitors," which could save OpenAI and other competitors billions of dollars in research and development costs.
Xuechen Li's background has also attracted attention. He is a computer doctorate from Stanford University and has interned at Google and Microsoft, being a member of xAI's early team. His experience raises questions about what motivated him to take such risks to steal secrets.
As this incident unfolds, discussions about whether OpenAI was involved are becoming more intense, and all we can do is to wait and see what happens next.
