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Elon Musk’s xAI Sues OpenAI Again, This Time Over Alleged Trade Secret Theft

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In brief

  • Elon Musk’s xAI has sued OpenAI, alleging it induced former employees to steal source code and data center deployment strategies.
  • The AI company alleges OpenAI targeted employees with knowledge of its “secret sauce” data center operations, with one executive refusing to sign confidentiality documents after leaving for OpenAI.
  • One engineer allegedly admitted in a “handwritten confession” to misappropriating code after encrypted communications with an OpenAI recruiter.

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday against OpenAI, accusing its rival of orchestrating a “coordinated, unfair, and unlawful campaign” to steal proprietary technology through targeted employee poaching.

The complaint, filed in California, alleges OpenAI “by hook or by crook” induced former xAI employees to misappropriate the company’s entire source code, training methods, and data center deployment strategies.

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI alongside Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Illya Sutskever, and others in 2015, stepped down from the board in 2018, citing conflicts of interest with his company, Tesla, and its self-driving cars. Since then, the tech billionaire has assumed a combative stance against OpenAI, including filing a separate lawsuit last month.



OpenAI recruiter Tifa Chen simultaneously targeted multiple xAI employees, offering multi-million dollar packages to engineers who then stole source code and uploaded it to personal devices within hours of their communications, the lawsuit alleges.

Xuechen Li, an early xAI engineer, allegedly “uploaded the entire xAI source code base to a personal cloud account” in July 2025, and later “admitted in a handwritten confession” that he misappropriated xAI’s code and presentation materials on training techniques.

The lawsuit details timestamps showing Li’s code theft occurred within hours of encrypted Signal messages with Chen, who allegedly responded “no way!” after Li copied the files, before OpenAI extended its multi-million dollar offer.

Jimmy Fraiture, another early xAI engineer, allegedly “used the AirDrop feature to transfer” confidential source code “at least five times” after signing with OpenAI, stealing “the majority of xAI’s code” he oversaw, plus experimental folders from four co-founders.

An unnamed senior finance executive who left for OpenAI allegedly called these operations xAI’s “secret sauce,” saying, “The data center team. Their speed and precision blew me away. I would NEVER want to compete against them.”

The executive then took a lesser role at OpenAI, focused on data center spending strategy even though he had no prior AI experience, and when confronted about confidentiality obligations, allegedly “responded with crude sexual expletives” and refused to sign termination documents.

Navodaya Singh Rajpurohit, legal partner at Coinque Consulting, told Decrypt  the case “leans heavily on employee poaching,” noting that whether it crosses from aggressive recruiting to unlawful misappropriation “will depend on evidence not included in the filing,” and that “hiring alone is rarely enough to prove trade-secret misuse.”

Ishita Sharma, managing partner at Fathom Legal, told Decrypt that xAI must define its “secret sauce” broadly, grouping GPU racking, vendor contracts, pricing curves, and orchestration playbooks, which, she noted, can be described “by the results they deliver — like faster deployment or cheaper scaling,  without putting the exact technical diagrams or formulas on the record.”

Sharma said “the recruiter angle is trickier,” since liability depends on whether recruiters acted as agents of OpenAI with the company’s knowledge. 

For OpenAI’s defense, she explained, the strongest approach would be to show independent creation through “time-stamped records: internal Git commits, R&D notes, supplier invoices, and emails,” with earlier documentation providing the most credibility.

xAI seeks damages, restitution, and injunctions requiring OpenAI to purge xAI material from its systems and even destroy models built with it.

The lawsuit adds to Musk’s ongoing legal battle with OpenAI, as last month, his companies filed an antitrust suit against Apple and OpenAI, claiming their exclusive iPhone integration creates unfair market dominance.

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Gaming Gear

Huge theft reportedly sees 2TB of private data stolen – police files hit in major breach

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  • Maida.health allegedly leaks 2.3TB of Brazilian military police medical and personal data
  • Cybercriminals advertised stolen records including diagnostics, ID cards, and healthcare contracts online
  • Healthcare remains a top target due to sensitive data and risk of identity theft or fraud

Maida.health, a Brazilian health technology company, allegedly suffered a data breach in which it lost more than 2TB of data concerning the country’s military police.

A threat actor recently posted a new thread on an underground forum advertising 2.3 terabytes of data sourced from maida.health, including the health records of Brazilian military police, identification cards and other details, as well as medical reports.

“This data includes all medical services and management of healthcare contracts in the Brazilian health system, particularly the Brazilian military police,” the post reads. “It specifically covers diagnostic and treatment services such as cardiology, neurology, gynecology, and more, including patient details, identification cards, and medical records for both personnel and their families.”


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Identity theft and medical fraud

So far, there has been no confirmation on the authenticity of the claims. The attacker posted a sample that is yet to be analyzed by security researchers, which allegedly includes invoices for medical care, administrative protocols, regulatory certificates, and clinical patient data.

In its writeup, Cybernews explained how the data might be abused: “When this kind of data is leaked, it could often lead to identity theft or medical fraud. For example, criminals may try to impersonate the victim to receive medical care or try to get prescription drugs in the victim’s name,” the researchers said.

This is not the first time the citizens of Brazil had their sensitive data leaked. In fact, at one point in early 2024, the entire Brazilian population was potentially put at risk, when researchers found an unprotected database that held personal information on approximately 223 million Brazilians.

Given that by 2021 data, Brazil has 214 million people, it could be that information on the entire population of Brazil was contained in that database.

Due to the sensitivity of the information generated, the healthcare industry is widely considered as among the most targeted ones.

Via Cybernews

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Grand Theft Auto 5 is the best-selling PlayStation game of all time
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Grand Theft Auto 5 is the best-selling PlayStation game of all time

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Grand Theft Auto 5 is the best-selling PlayStation game of all time, across all generations, in the U.S.

That’s according to Circana’s Mat Piscatella, who, to celebrate PlayStation’s 30th anniversary in the U.S on September 9, 2025, shared the 20 all-time best-selling games on PlayStation (using data from Circana’s retail tracking service).

The data was taken from between January 1995, eight months before the first PlayStation console was released in North America, and July 2025, and covers physical and digital sales.

Piscatella then divided the data into two ranked lists: the top 20 for “dollars” revenue sales and the top 20 for units sold.

Best-selling PlayStation games of all time (US, revenue)

  1. Grand Theft Auto 5
  2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
  3. Red Dead Redemption 2
  4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022)
  5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  6. Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War
  7. Minecraft
  8. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
  9. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
  10. Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock
  11. Marvel’s Spider-Man
  12. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
  13. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  14. Call of Duty: WW2
  15. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
  16. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)
  17. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
  18. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
  19. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  20. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Best-selling PlayStation games of all time (US, units sold)

  1. Grand Theft Auto 5
  2. Minecraft
  3. Red Dead Redemption 2
  4. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
  5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
  6. Marvel’s Spider-Man
  7. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
  8. Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War
  9. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
  10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022)
  11. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  12. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  13. The Last of Us
  14. God of War (2018)
  15. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
  16. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  17. Rainbow Six: Siege
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
  19. Call of Duty: WW2
  20. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

In the number one spot for both is Grand Theft Auto 5, which, according to Take-Two Interactive’s financial report earlier this year, had sold over 215 million units worldwide as of May 2025, with five million of those copies sold between February 2025 (when Take-Two confirmed it had sold over 210 million units) and May 2025.

In second and third place, respectively, for sales revenue, are Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and Red Dead Redemption 2, followed by three Call of Duty titles: Modern Warfare 2 (2022), Black Ops 6, and Black Ops – Cold War.

In fact, Call of Duty titles make up 11 of the 20 top-selling PlayStation games in terms of revenue, and nine of the 20 for units sold.

The only other franchises, aside from Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, to make it onto the top revenue list are Minecraft, Guitar Hero, and Marvel’s Spider-Man.

However, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) is fifth when it comes to top-selling PlayStation games by units sold, with Minecraft, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas taking second, third, and fourth places, respectively.

Other games to make the best-seller list for units include Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, God of War (2018), The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, The Last of Us, and Marvel’s Spider-Man.

The PlayStation officially launched in North America on September 9, 1995.

To mark the brand’s 30th anniversary, Sony is holding a series of special events, activities, and giveaways, and has released a limited-edition anniversary range of PS5 products.



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Photo: Mladen Antoniv/AFP
Product Reviews

Apple Sues Chinese Phonemaker Oppo For Alleged Trade Secrets Theft

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Apple is suing Chinese consumer electronics company Oppo for poaching a member of the Cupertino giant’s Apple Watch team to allegedly steal trade secrets.

Apple, represented by lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis, is bringing the lawsuit against the company’s former sensor system architect Dr. Cheng Shi, and his new employers China-based Oppo and California-based Innopeak.

Dr. Shi now leads a team developing sensing technology at Oppo’s U.S. office, according to a complaint filed by Apple on Thursday in the Northern District of California.

What is Shi accused of doing?

Dr. Shi was a highly paid engineer at Apple between January 2020 and June 2025 where Apple says he had “a front row seat to Apple’s development of its cutting-edge health sensor technology, including highly confidential roadmaps, design and development documents, and specifications for ECG sensor technology,” which helps Apple Watches measure heart activity, according to the complaint. 

Apple accuses Dr. Shi of downloading 63 confidential documents on the company’s shared drive for employees to a USB drive just three days before leaving. The documents allegedly included sensitive information on the technological capabilities of yet to be released products and “technical specifications concerning hardware and software implementations” of Apple’s sensor products like temperature sensors in its Apple Watch offerings.

Before downloading the documents from Apple’s shared drive onto his Macbook, Dr. Shi’s internet search history allegedly revealed that he looked up “how to wipe out macbook” and “Can somebody see if I’ve opened a file on a shared drive?”

Apple also claims that Dr. Shi stole confidential technical information from the team that is developing Apple’s custom chips. Apple develops its own custom silicon chips for its Mac, iPhone, and iPad products. The company has also been working on designing custom AI chips for some time now, and the effort is considered key to CEO Tim Cook’s AI overhaul.

Oppo is known for its high-tech smartphones, and the China-based company got some heat online back in 2020 for releasing what many deemed an Apple Watch clone.

Oppo’s smartphones, although ano match yet to Apple’s iPhones, do remarkably well in Asian markets, particularly in China, one of Apple’s largest markets.

Along with Huawei and Xiaomi, Oppo has eaten away at Apple’s China market share, causing Apple to fall off from the list of top five smartphone vendors in China in 2024. But the tech giant has recently started turning this narrative around: iPhone sales rose to the top spot in China in May, Reuters reported in June citing preliminary third-party data, driving an overall increase in global sales for Apple.

Although Oppo does not do business in the U.S., the company does own and operate a “research center” in Silicon Valley under both Oppo and Innopeak’s names, according to the complaint.

Oppo has not yet responded to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

What does Apple say happened?

Apple points to evidence from Dr. Shi’s work-issued phone, which allegedly shows his communications with Oppo senior leadership from April 2025 to until he left Apple at the end of June.

“This week I’ll inform my team about my resignation,” he allegedly wrote in messages included in the lawsuit. “Lately, I’ve also been reviewing various internal materials and doing a lot of 1:1 meetings in an effort to collect as much information as possible – will share with you all later.”

In the month before he left Apple, Dr. Shi allegedly scheduled 33 one-on-one meetings covering projects he was not involved in, compared to an average of seven per month a year earlier.

Then when he did resign at the end of the month, Dr. Shi did not tell colleagues that he would begin work at Oppo, but instead said that he was “returning to China to tend to his elderly parents and had no plans to seek new employment,” according to the complaint.

Apple is seeking an injunction prohibiting Oppo from using Apple’s trade secrets, and is asking the court to award restitution and damages in an amount to be determined at trial.



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Binance announces Defi App (HOME) listing and 200m airdrop for BNB holders
NFT Gaming

Binance warns of social engineering SMS scam after $91m Bitcoin theft

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Binance has warned its users about scammers after a victim lost $91 million in a similar attack.

Summary

  • Binance has warned its users about scammers impersonating its support
  • One user lost $91 million in Bitcoin from a similar attack
  • ZachXBT says that attackers don’t appear to be from North Korea

Scammers are increasingly relying on human error to steal funds. On August 21, crypto investigator ZachXBT reported that one user lost $91 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to a social engineering scam.

On Aug 19, 2025 a victim fell for a social engineering scam and lost 783 BTC ($91M) after exchange and hardware wallet customer support were impersonated.

The stolen funds began to peel off and deposits to Wasabi were made by the threat actor.

Coincidentally this theft… pic.twitter.com/gglShNo2UC

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 21, 2025

According to the investigator, the attack, which happened on August 19, was a social engineering scam. Scammers impersonated both the victim’s crypto exchange and hardware wallet support via text messages.

They used this fabricated trust to get the victim to share critical information, which gave the attackers control over the funds.

Binance warns that scammers are targeting its users

ZachXBT did not reveal which exchange the attackers targeted. However, following the attack, Chinese crypto reporter Colin Wu reported that Binance issued a warning about the same type of scams to its users.

Binance: Scammers are sending fake SMS messages pretending to be from Binance. They want to trick you by saying your account is “at risk” and make you call fake support telephone numbers or click dangerous links. Binance will never reach out directly via SMS or phone calls. If… pic.twitter.com/IZtYb5c9Zk

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 21, 2025

According to Binance, attackers send unsolicited text messages to users, pretending to be from the exchange. Typically, these scams try to make it seem that the user’s account is at risk.

For instance, the messages will warn users that a new device from an unknown location has logged into their accounts. Similarly, the text messages also warn about supposed transfers.

In all cases, attackers prompt users to either call the “support” number or log into a fake website. From there, they are asked to share account information, enabling scammers to take over their wallets.

According to Hacken, social engineering scams led to $600 million in losses in the first half of 2025. This was about 19% of all losses across crypto platforms in the same period.





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