Elon Musk acknowledged under oath in April 2026 that his AI company xAI had partly used OpenAI’s models to train its own — a practice known as distillation — while being cross-examined in federal court as part of his ongoing legal dispute with OpenAI.
The admission came during questioning by OpenAI attorney William Savitt. When asked directly whether xAI had used distillation with OpenAI’s models, Musk responded, “Generally all the AI companies [do that].” When pressed for a direct answer, he confirmed: “Partly.” Asked more broadly whether OpenAI’s technology had been used to develop xAI, Musk said, “It is standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI.”
Distillation is a technique in which a smaller AI model is trained to mimic the behavior of a larger, more capable one, making it cheaper and faster to run while preserving much of its performance.
The exchange is significant given OpenAI’s active efforts to prevent competitors from distilling its models. In a February 2026 memo to a House committee, OpenAI stated it had “taken steps to protect and harden our models against distillation,” citing concerns about Chinese AI labs — specifically DeepSeek — appropriating American AI development. The Trump administration has also weighed in, with White House science and technology policy director Michael Kratsios announcing in an April 2026 memo that the government would share information with U.S. AI companies about foreign distillation attempts.
The broader competitive landscape has grown increasingly restrictive. In August 2025, Anthropic blocked OpenAI’s access to its Claude coding models after alleging terms-of-service violations. Anthropic has since also cut off xAI from using its models for coding.
Musk’s cross-examination, which has spanned multiple days, has also covered his alleged attempts to assume control of OpenAI and, separately, to undermine it by withholding funding and recruiting its researchers. OpenAI and xAI did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: WIRED