A former engineer at xAI has filed a lawsuit in California, alleging that he was illegally fired. The former employee of Elon Musk’s AI company said he had raised safety concerns about Grok's development, but was sacked just days before he was supposed to present the flaws to the company’s leadership.
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A former xAI engineer claims he was fired after raising safety concerns about Grok.
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Devin Kim says he was dismissed days before presenting those concerns to company leadership.
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The lawsuit accuses xAI and SpaceX of retaliation and wrongful dismissal.
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Kim now leads the Center for AI Safety, a non-profit focused on AI risks.
Devin Kim, the former xAI’s engineer, claims he was let go by the company after he had pushed for stronger safeguards in the development of the company’s chatbot, Grok. The complaint says his efforts made him a target for senior leadership.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in California state court, isn’t coming at the most convenient time for its owner, billionaire Musk. The allegations come to light ahead of SpaceX's planned initial public offering, the largest ever, on Friday, another multimillion-dollar company owned by Musk.
"Mr. Kim repeatedly complained that xAI’s failure to prioritize AI safety, particularly with respect to Grok, virtually guaranteed that the Company would commit unlawful acts, from fomenting discrimination to proliferating weapons of mass destruction," the lawsuit, quoted by Reuters, says.
Cybernews has previously reported on Grok's security issues, which have led to numerous legal allegations and public backlash.
For example. Grok received criticism for generating images of women who were undressed or visualized wearing tiny bikinis or put in sexualized positions. Some images depicted children.
This sparked a wave of legal action worldwide, with France and the UK launching investigations into Grok and countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia blocking access to the chatbot.
A number of studies have highlighted other dangerous Grok tendencies, such as romanticizing death and comparing it to a “butterfly leaving its shell” or nudging users toward paid or sponsored options when booking flights or choosing products.
According to the new lawsuit, Kim was one of the initial hires at xAI in 2024 and was promoted to a key leadership position months after joining the company. He was expected to help implement robust safety testing.
“I joined as one of the first members of the post-training team in 2024 and eventually led research tooling, where we built some of the world’s best systems to accelerate Grok’s development,” Kim said in a post on X in September, which he wrote to announce his departure from the company.
In September, he was scheduled to make a presentation on AI safety to the company’s leaders, but he was fired just days beforehand. Kim alleges that his supervisor, xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba, resisted his efforts to raise safety concerns about Grok.
Although his farewell message claims he’ll “always be grateful to @elonmusk for the opportunity,” the reality of the lawsuit shows a different story. It accuses xAI and SpaceX of retaliation and wrongful dismissal. Both companies are being sued for damages, which have not been specified.
New beginnings for Kim
Kim has since found a new job. Last week, the non-profit Center for AI Safety (CAIS), an organization focused on the risks posed by AI, announced that it had appointed him as its president.
In the newly created role of president, Kim will lead CAIS's organizational strategy, and “growing engagement across the policy, national security, and AI communities,” the company claims.
"I have spent my career building the most powerful AI systems in the world and am a firm believer that AI has the potential to profoundly benefit society," said Kim.
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