An American judge temporarily dismisses xAI's trade secret lawsuit against rival OpenAI.

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI accused competitor OpenAI of stealing its trade secrets, but a federal judge in California dismissed the lawsuit on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco said xAI could refile the lawsuit, but currently there is no evidence of misconduct by OpenAI. The lawsuit, filed in September, claimed that former xAI employees took source code and other confidential information related to its Grok chatbot when they left to join OpenAI. "Notably, the lawsuit does not allege any misconduct by OpenAI itself," Lin said. "xAI has not alleged any facts suggesting that OpenAI induced xAI's former employees to steal xAI's trade secrets, nor has it alleged that these former xAI employees used any stolen trade secrets after being employed by OpenAI." Lin had indicated in a January opinion that she was likely to rule in favor of OpenAI. She has ordered xAI to submit an amended complaint by March 17. xAI has also separately sued former engineer Li Xueqin, accusing him of providing trade secrets to the manufacturer of ChatGPT. In that case, Li was ordered not to share xAI's technology with OpenAI, but OpenAI stated that Li had never worked for the company and had never obtained or used any of xAI's trade secrets. Spokespersons and lawyers for xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday's ruling.