A US federal judge dismissed with prejudice a trade secret lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI against OpenAI on Monday, ruling that asking job candidates to discuss prior work is routine and cannot be construed as inducing the disclosure of confidential information, marking Musk's second consecutive legal defeat against OpenAI in four weeks.

  • US District Judge Rita Lin dismissed the xAI lawsuit with prejudice, barring any refiling of the same claims, on June 16, 2026.
  • The case centred on allegations that OpenAI induced a former xAI engineer to disclose trade secrets related to the Grok chatbot during a recruiting presentation.
  • An earlier version of the lawsuit was dismissed in February, with Monday's ruling described by the judge as the final resolution given the futility of further amendment.
  • The dismissal follows a May 18 federal jury verdict against Musk in a separate $150 billion lawsuit accusing OpenAI of betraying its nonprofit mission.

Judge Lin ruled that the standard recruiting practice of asking candidates to discuss their prior work does not constitute actionable inducement to disclose confidential information. Holding otherwise, the judge wrote, would expose employers to liability any time they inquire about a candidate's background, an outcome incompatible with ordinary hiring practice.

xAI's amended complaint had focused on a presentation given by former senior engineer Xuechen Li while OpenAI was in the process of recruiting him. The company argued OpenAI sought specific knowledge related to the July 2025 release of Grok 4, claiming OpenAI's forthcoming update to its own products could not compete on complex reasoning. The judge found the evidence insufficient to support that inference.

OpenAI characterised the lawsuit as part of a sustained campaign of harassment unrelated to its merits. Li is being separately sued by xAI and has denied wrongdoing. Neither xAI nor its legal representatives issued immediate public comment following the ruling.