A former engineer at Elon Musk's xAI has filed a lawsuit against the company and its parent SpaceX, claiming he was fired for repeatedly raising alarms about safety issues with the Grok AI directory chatbot.
Devin Kim, who left xAI in September 2025, filed the complaint in California state court on Tuesday. The legal action comes just days before SpaceX is expected to go public in what analysts are calling the largest initial public offering in history.
Lawsuit Details Retaliation Claims
According to the lawsuit, which TechCrunch reviewed, Kim became a vocal advocate for AI safety while working on Grok, the chatbot developed by xAI. He allegedly complained multiple times about the company's failure to prioritize safety in Grok's development. The chatbot has since faced widespread criticism for safety and behavioral problems.
A few months after Kim left xAI, Grok made headlines again when the chatbot was used to flood X, Musk's social media platform which also falls under the xAI umbrella, with nonconsensual sexual imagery.
The lawsuit also positions Kim as a whistleblower who was concerned that xAI's disregard for AI safety violated laws related to internet regulation, consumer protection, unfair business practices, and arms and explosives regulation.
Blame Falls on Co-Founder, Not Musk
Notably, the lawsuit does not accuse Musk himself of ignoring safety concerns. Instead, Kim's lawyers describe Musk as having directed xAI to follow the law and implement appropriate safety and testing processes. The complaint instead targets Kim's supervisor, xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba, who left the company earlier this year.
The suit claims Ba ignored Musk's directives and retaliated against Kim for pushing for safety safeguards in an effort to "silence his repeated complaints about AI safety and biases."
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The lawsuit portrays Ba as someone who strongly opposed AI safety measures, at one point telling Kim that "AI will kill us all anyway." Ba was reportedly driven by a mission to make xAI the first to reach superintelligence.
"In one instance in or around August 2025, Mr. Ba attempted to thwart EU safety regulations during the release of Grok Code 1, misrepresenting aspects of the model in order to avoid legally required testing," the complaint reads. "Mr. Ba indicated that he would rather release an unsafe model than a poor-performing one. Mr. Musk ultimately had to intervene."
According to the lawsuit, Kim had planned to present his findings the week of September 15, 2025. But Ba called him into a meeting and told him they should "go [their] separate ways" without providing a satisfactory reason.
Background in AI Safety
Kim's focus on AI safety predates his time at xAI. While working at Scale AI, he worked on early safety AI initiatives, including leading a project that produced training data to help systems detect harmful content and comply with governance policies.
Last week, the nonprofit Center for AI Safety, which focuses on AI risks, named Kim as its president.
xAI and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment. TechCrunch has also reached out to Ba for comment.
Kim is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a declaratory judgment that xAI and SpaceX's conduct was unlawful.
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