Musk’s xAI accused of illegally firing engineer who raised safety concerns
By Daniel Wiessner
June 10 (Reuters) – A former engineer at Elon Musk’s xAI who now heads a think tank focused on artificial intelligence safety has filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired from the SpaceX subsidiary for voicing concerns about the risks artificial intelligence poses for humanity.
Devin Kim claims in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in California state court that his efforts to plant guardrails in the development of chatbot Grok made him a target for company leadership.
The lawsuit comes ahead of SpaceX’s planned initial public offering on Friday, its biggest ever.
“Mr. Kim has repeatedly complained that xAI’s failure to prioritize AI security, particularly with regard to Grok, virtually guarantees that the Company will engage in illegal actions, from promoting discrimination to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” the lawsuit states.
xAI and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Kim’s case.
The Center for Artificial Intelligence Security, a nonprofit focused on the risks potentially posed by artificial intelligence, announced last week that it had chosen Kim as its president.
Musk, the richest person in the world, founded xAI in 2023, which he said would be a safer alternative. OpenAIWhich he helped find more than a decade ago. Last month, a jury dismissed Musk’s lawsuit, claiming OpenAI had strayed from its original mission to benefit humanity.
According to the new lawsuit, Kim was one of the first hires at xAI in 2024 and was promoted to a key leadership position months after joining the company.
Kim said Musk expects xAI to implement appropriate security testing and processes. But the lawsuit alleges that Kim’s superior, xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba, disregarded those directives and rejected Kim’s insistence on implementing security mechanisms.
Kim said Ba abruptly fired him last September, just before Kim was to give a presentation on AI security to company leaders.
The lawsuit accuses xAI and SpaceX of retaliation and wrongful termination in violation of California law and seeks unspecified monetary damages.
SpaceX and Musk’s other ventures, including electric vehicle maker Tesla, have faced alleged safety issues, from dangers to company employees to concerns about “self-driving technology.”
In 2023, Reuters documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at SpaceX, including crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions and one death. Some employees blamed the problems on a lax safety culture and Musk’s belief that SpaceX was on an urgent quest to create a haven in space from the dying Earth.
