A former engineer at Elon Musk’s xAI has filed a lawsuit against the company and its parent organization, SpaceX, claiming he was terminated after raising concerns about artificial intelligence safety. Devin Kim, who left xAI in September 2025, submitted the complaint in a California state court on Tuesday. The legal action comes just days before SpaceX is expected to go public in what is shaping up to be the largest initial public offering in history.

According to the lawsuit, Kim repeatedly voiced worries about xAI’s failure to prioritize safety during the development of Grok, a product that has since faced criticism for various safety and behavioral problems. Specifically, Kim was concerned that Grok could promote discrimination and assist in spreading information about weapons of mass destruction. “Grok, of course, proved Mr. Kim right by engaging in spectacular displays of online hatred and vitriol, with the model likening itself to Hitler (‘MechaHitler’),” the lawsuit states. “Following the Hitler debacle, Mr. Kim worked to re-evaluate Grok’s political bias and discriminatory tendencies.”

A few months after Kim’s departure from 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 believed xAI’s alleged disregard for AI safety was “unlawful” in areas such as internet regulation, consumer protection, unfair business practices, and arms and explosives regulation, among others. xAI and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Kim’s focus on AI safety predates his time at xAI. While working at Scale AI, he contributed to early safety initiatives, including leading a project that produced training data for AI systems to 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.

Interestingly, the lawsuit does not implicate Musk himself as a reason for the lack of safety. Instead, Kim’s lawyers describe Musk as having directed xAI to follow the law and implement appropriate safety and testing processes. The claim targets Kim’s supervisor, xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba—who left the company earlier this year—alleging that Ba ignored Musk’s directives and retaliated against Kim for pushing for safeguards, in an effort to “silence his repeated complaints about AI safety and biases.”

The lawsuit portrays Ba as someone who vehemently opposed AI safety measures, allegedly telling Kim at one point, “AI will kill us all anyway,” and who was instead 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 says. “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. Kim is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a declaratory judgment that xAI and SpaceX’s conduct was unlawful.