(This Jan 30 story has been repeated with no changes to the text) By Jonathan Stempel Jan 30 (Reuters) - A federal judge signaled on Friday she may dismiss a lawsuit by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI accusing Sam Altman's rival OpenAI of stealing trade secrets to gain an unfair advantage in developing AI technology.

Elon Musk’s xAI argues OpenAI hired former employees to obtain Grok source code and other confidential information.

The deal brings xAI and Elon Musk’s social media platform X under the SpaceX banner.

Elon Musk's mega-deal combining SpaceX and xAI is the latest sign that the billionaire is consolidating his business empire as he goes all in on AI.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, just combined his companies SpaceX and xAI, creating the most valuable privately-owned company in the world.

The record-setting deal will be the largest merger of all time and is valued at $1.25 trillion

SpaceX announced today that it has acquired xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, in a deal that creates a combined entity reportedly valued at $1.25 trillion ahead of a planned IPO. The acquisition notably does not include Tesla,

SpaceX and OpenAI and their leaders, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, are among tech's biggest figures. Both could IPO in 2026.