Briefly
- Ex Populus, creator of the Xai gaming blockchain, is suing Elon Musk’s xAI for trademark infringement, and asking a court docket to dam its use of the “xAI” identify in gaming and blockchain.
- The corporate says Musk’s enlargement of xAI into gaming triggered confusion with media, customers, and even X’s personal AI chatbot Grok, which mistakenly linked the 2 ventures.
- Ex Populus argues Musk’s controversies, together with Grok’s previous offensive remarks, have severely broken its model.
The creators of Xai, a layer-3 gaming blockchain constructed on Ethereum, have sued Elon Musk’s xAI for trademark infringement—and are asking a federal court docket to drive the billionaire’s synthetic intelligence firm to vary its identify and branding in contexts associated to video video games and blockchain.
In November, Musk introduced plans to begin an AI online game studio inside xAI, to “make video games nice once more.” Ex Populus, the corporate behind gaming blockchain Xai, now claims that Musk’s announcement instantly created “substantial precise confusion” on-line between their established online game model, Xai, and Musk’s xAI gaming enterprise.
Quite a few information aggregators and commentators used the blockchain’s brand in bulletins about Musk’s enterprise, the corporate’s attorneys declare, and plenty of extra web customers mistook the separate ventures to be associated. What’s extra, Grok—Musk’s AI chatbot—additionally confused the 2 separate entities, and advised X customers they had been each managed by Musk’s corporations, the attorneys stated.
In a criticism filed Thursday, Ex Populus requested a federal court docket in northern California to order Musk’s AI firm to stop utilizing any phrases or symbols more likely to trigger confusion with Xai’s registered trademark, within the contexts of video gaming and blockchain.
It additionally requested punitive damages and all income reaped by Musk’s corporations for the alleged infringement.
Ex Populus’ attorneys repeatedly argued of their criticism that Musk’s firm has not solely constantly infringed on their copyright since final 12 months—however, additional, that the actual notoriety and controversy related to the world’s richest man have made the alleged infringement notably damaging to their model.
Ex Populus took authorized motion at this time to guard the Xai model. With elevated confusion round Elon Musk’s AI firm (@xai), it’s an enormous duty to safeguard the model that the neighborhood trusts. You may learn extra particulars at https://t.co/ce8Aw9hNCZ
— XAI 🎮⛓️ (@XAI_GAMES) August 22, 2025
“Musk and defendants’ xAI firm routinely obtain substantive destructive media consideration that’s now being attributed to plaintiff’s XAI trademark,” the attorneys wrote.
The legal professionals made explicit word of an argument that erupted final month when Musk’s AI bot, Grok, referred to itself as “MechaHitler” for a short interval and made antisemitic, racist, and sexually violent feedback throughout the X platform.
“Plaintiff dropping management over its goodwill is irreparable hurt ample to assist an injunction to stop defendants’ use of the infringing xAI marks,” Ex Populus’ attorneys stated, “however to be related to Nazism, hate speech, and violence exacerbates the hurt exponentially.”
Ex Populus stated in an announcement that Musk’s attorneys reached out to them just lately about trademark points, and that, now, the corporate feels it has no possibility however to struggle again “or danger dropping [the trademark] altogether.”
“This case isn’t nearly Ex Populus or Xai,” the corporate stated. “It speaks to one thing larger: the appropriate of smaller innovators to construct with out having their identification swallowed by tech giants.”
Musk’s xAI didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s request for touch upon this story.
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