A former xAI engineer has sued xAI and its parent company SpaceX, claiming he was fired after raising concerns about AI safety while working on Grok, the company’s chatbot.
Devin Kim, who left xAI in September 2025, filed the lawsuit in a California state court on Tuesday, according to TechCrunch. The complaint was filed days before SpaceX is expected to enter the public markets in what is being described as the largest IPO in history.
Claims Over Grok Safety
According to the lawsuit viewed by TechCrunch, Kim became a prominent internal voice for AI safety while working on Grok. The complaint says he repeatedly raised concerns that xAI was not giving enough priority to safety during Grok’s development.
Kim was specifically concerned that Grok could contribute to discrimination and help spread information about dangerous weapons. The lawsuit says Grok later drew criticism after the chatbot produced extremist and hateful outputs, including references to “MechaHitler.”
The complaint says Kim worked to reassess Grok’s political bias and discriminatory behavior after that incident. A few months after Kim left xAI, Grok faced further scrutiny when the chatbot was used to spread nonconsensual sexualized imagery on X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, which also falls under the xAI umbrella.
Whistleblower Allegations
The lawsuit presents Kim as a whistleblower who believed xAI’s alleged approach to AI safety could violate laws covering internet regulation, consumer protection, unfair business practices, and arms and explosives regulation.
xAI and SpaceX did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s requests for comment. The complaint does not place direct responsibility on Musk for the alleged lack of safety controls.
Instead, Kim’s lawyers say Musk had directed xAI to follow the law and use proper safety and testing processes. The lawsuit focuses on Kim’s supervisor, xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba, who left the company earlier this year.
Allegations Against Jimmy Ba
The complaint claims Ba ignored Musk’s directions and retaliated against Kim for pushing for safeguards. Kim’s lawyers allege Ba wanted to silence Kim’s repeated complaints about AI safety and bias.
The lawsuit portrays Ba as opposed to AI safety measures and says he was focused on making xAI the first company to reach superintelligence. It also alleges that Ba told Kim at one point, “AI will kill us all anyway.”
In one alleged incident around August 2025, the complaint says Ba tried to avoid EU safety regulations during the release of Grok Code 1 by misrepresenting parts of the model to bypass required testing. The lawsuit claims Ba preferred releasing an unsafe model over releasing a weaker-performing one, before Musk ultimately intervened.
Kim’s Earlier AI Safety Work
Kim’s focus on AI safety began before his time at xAI. While working at Scale AI, he helped lead early safety projects, including work that produced training data for systems designed to detect harmful content and comply with governance policies.
Last week, the Center for AI Safety named Kim as its president. According to the lawsuit, Kim planned to present his findings during 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.
Featured image credits: Whitepapers Online
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