Broadcom Ltd. said in a lawsuit that Space Exploration Technologies Corporation—SpaceX—recruited engineers away from the chip maker after soliciting Broadcom’s services and then declining to work with them.
The San Jose-based chipmaker, which has offices in Irvine, filed the lawsuit March 23 in Orange County Superior Court. SpaceX is the Hawthorne-based rocket maker founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is also known for Tesla Motors Inc., based in San Carlos, which makes luxury electric cars.
Broadcom alleges in the suit that SpaceX violated a non-disclosure agreement in order “to procure a family of sophisticated, customized computer chips without bearing all of the research and development costs inevitably involved in creating such chips.”
SpaceX denies the allegations and said Broadcom was one of many vendors from which it sought proposals.
“SpaceX reviewed Broadcom’s proposal but ultimately found it lacking and rejected it,” said a SpaceX spokesman. “SpaceX did not pursue or lure engineers from Broadcom. On the contrary, these engineers reached out to SpaceX anticipating significant layoffs at the Broadcom Irvine location.”
Broadcom last month announced plans to lay off 700 workers in Irvine as part of a nationwide cost-cutting plan.
Reim is a reporter for our sister publication, the Los Angeles Business Journal, which first published a version of this article.
