In Episode 23 of the Thought Media Podcast, Ava and Max examine a major legal conflict shaking the AI industry: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is suing former engineer Xuechen Li, alleging he stole proprietary code from its Grok chatbot and leaked it to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
Ave and Max break down the two entities for new listeners. xAI, founded by Musk, created Grok, a cutting-edge AI assistant integrated into X (formerly Twitter). Meanwhile, OpenAI, originally co-founded by Musk (now lead by Sam Altman), has become a global leader in artificial intelligence with its massively successful ChatGPT platform.
According to court documents filed in August 2025, Li allegedly copied Grok’s codebase, resigned from xAI, cashed out $7 million in stock, and went to work for OpenAI. The lawsuit claims the stolen data included internal model weights and training systems—assets Musk’s team believes give OpenAI an unfair advantage.
xAI secured a temporary restraining order blocking Li from working on generative AI at OpenAI. A court hearing is scheduled for October 7 to determine whether the order will be extended. If the accusations are true, the impact could be severe, including years of stolen R&D, reputational damage, and increased scrutiny on how AI talent moves between companies.
Ava and Max dive into the broader implications of this dispute: the increasing volatility of AI talent wars, the risks of IP leakage, and why AI firms must take data protection and employee transitions seriously. They emphasize that these claims are still allegations, but that this case highlights the fragile balance between innovation and security in the modern AI arms race.
This is one of the biggest legal battles in AI to date—and Thought Media will be watching closely as it unfolds.