A federal judge dismissed xAI's trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI with prejudice, ruling that Elon Musk's company failed to show OpenAI improperly obtained confidential information about its Grok chatbot. Judge Rita Lin found that asking a former xAI engineer to discuss his prior work while recruiting him was a routine part of hiring and didn't support an inference that OpenAI induced him to reveal trade secrets, warning the opposite finding could expose any employer to liability for asking candidates about past work. The dismissal with prejudice bars xAI from refiling, and it marks Musk's second courtroom loss to OpenAI in four weeks, following a jury's May rejection of his $150B suit alleging OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission.
