X Corp filed a lawsuit against its former lead engineer, Yao Yue, accusing her of stealing company trade secrets to start her own business after she posted criticism of Elon Musk on social media and was fired.
The complaint says Yue copied about 6 million lines of proprietary source code onto USB drives. The code is described in the filing as containing tools that help run the X platform with “maximum efficiency and minimal resource expenditure, the very reason for X Corp.’s value and competitive success,” and that those tools are central to the company’s edge.
The suit says “Yue then launched IOP systems just days after her willful and malicious exfiltration occurred, offering customers services using those same specialized tools.”
Yue was dismissed in 2022 soon after she posted “Don’t resign, let him fire you.” An NLRB judge later rejected her claim that X unlawfully fired her, ruling in 2024 that she was a supervisor and not protected by the relevant law.
X alleges Yue used the disruption during Musk’s acquisition to take the code without being noticed. The complaint says she “bragged” to a former supervisor about removing the code and that after her firing she tried to persuade other employees to open source pieces of the code.
The case is now before the court in the Northern District of California, where X seeks to hold Yue responsible and to stop further use of the taken code.
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