A former engineer at Elon Musk’s xAI has filed a lawsuit against the company and its parent company SpaceX, claiming he was fired for raising concerns about the safety of its AI.
Devin Kim, who left xAI in September 2025, filed the lawsuit in California state court on Tuesday. The complaint was filed just days before SpaceX plans to participate in what is shaping up to be the largest IPO in history.
Kim became a prominent voice for AI safety while working on xAI’s AI chatbot Grok, according to the lawsuit seen by TechCrunch. He is said to have repeatedly complained that xAI did not prioritize safety in the development of Grok, and Grok products have since come under fire for a variety of safety and operational issues. In particular, Kim was concerned that Grok could promote discrimination and help spread information about weapons of mass destruction.
“Mr. Grok, of course, proved Mr. Kim right by comparing himself to Hitler (‘Mecha-Hitler’) and brilliantly expressing his hatred and vitriol online,” the complaint says. “After the Hitler debacle, Mr. Kim sought to reevaluate Mr. Grok’s political bias and discriminatory tendencies.”
Months after Kim left xAI, Grok again made headlines when he used a chatbot to flood X (Musk’s social media platform, which is part of xAI) with non-consensual sexual images.
The lawsuit also names Kim as a whistleblower concerned about xAI’s alleged disregard for AI safety, calling it “illegal” in areas such as internet regulation, consumer protection and unfair business practices, and arms and explosives regulation.
xAI and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
Kim’s focus on AI safety began during her time at xAI. While working at Scale AI, Kim worked on early safety AI efforts, including leading a project to create training data for AI to train systems to detect harmful content and adhere to governance policies. The Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit focused on AI risks, named Kim last week as its president.
Interestingly, the lawsuit does not implicate Musk himself as the reason for the lack of safety. Rather, Kim’s lawyers say Musk instructed xAI to follow the law and implement appropriate safety and testing processes. Instead, the allegations target Mr. Kim’s boss, xAI co-founder Jimmy Barr, who left the company earlier this year, saying Mr. Barr ignored Mr. Musk’s directives and retaliated against Mr. Kim for pushing for safeguards in order to “silence repeated complaints about AI safety and bias.”
The complaint depicts Ba as someone who fiercely opposed AI security measures, at one point telling Kim that “AI is going to kill us all anyway,” and was instead driven by a mission to get xAI to reach superintelligence first.
“In one instance, around August 2025, Mr. Ba attempted to subvert EU safety regulations during the release of Grok Code 1, misrepresenting aspects of the model to avoid legally required testing,” the complaint states. “Mr. Ba indicated that he would rather release an unsafe model than a poorly performing one. Ultimately, Mr. Musk had to intervene.”
According to the complaint, Kim was scheduled to announce his findings the week of September 15, 2025, but Ba called him to a meeting and told him, without providing a satisfactory reason, that they should “go their separate ways.”
TechCrunch has reached out to Ba for comment.
Kim is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a declaratory judgment that xAI and SpaceX’s actions were illegal.
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