Social media giant Reddit has launched a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Perplexity, alleging that it illegally scraped user posts to train its AI model, marking the latest data-rights clash between content owners and the AI industry. 

The complaint filed in New York federal court on Wednesday also named three defendants, which Reddit says helped Perplexity collect its data: Lithuanian data scraper Oxylabs, “former Russian botnet” AWMProxy, and Texas startup SerpApi.

Reddit alleged that the three smaller entities were able to extract its copyrighted content “by masking their identities, hiding their locations and disguising their web scrapers as regular people.”

Perplexity, which runs an AI-powered search engine, denied the allegations and accused Reddit of “extortion” and opposition to an open internet, while SerpApi told CNBC it “strongly disagrees” with Reddit’s claims and intends to defend itself in court. 

The case represents one of many filed by content owners accusing AI firms of using copyrighted material without permission to train their large language models. Reddit, in particular, has been on the front lines of that battle, having launched a similar ongoing lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic in June. CNBC was unable to reach Oxylabs and AWMProxy.

In a statement shared with CNBC, Ben Lee, Chief Legal Officer at Reddit, said that AI companies are” locked in an arms race for quality human content” and that pressure has fueled an “industrial-scale ‘data laundering’ economy.”

Scrapers bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it to clients hungry for training material. Reddit is a prime target because it’s one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversation ever created.

Reddit — which hosts over 100,000 interest-based “subreddit” communities — said in its lawsuit that its user posts had become the most commonly cited source for AI-generated answers on Perplexity. 

It added that it sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter, after which it increased the volume of citations to Reddit “forty-fold.”

AI researchers have previously noted that Reddit’s large volume of moderated conversations can help make AI chatbots produce more natural-sounding responses.

In the age of artificial intelligence, Reddit has worked to leverage its massive data pool, permitting access to it only through AI-related licensing agreements. The social media company has signed such agreements with OpenAI and Alphabet‘s Google. 

In a response to the lawsuit, Perplexity, in a post on the Reddit platform, argued that it does not train AI models on content but merely summarizes and cites public Reddit discussions. Therefore, it said it is “impossible” to sign a license agreement.

“A year ago, after explaining this, Reddit insisted we pay anyway, despite lawfully accessing Reddit data. Bowing to strong arm tactics just isn’t how we do business,” the statement read, going on to describe the suit as a “show of force in Reddit’s training data negotiations with Google and OpenAI.” 

“Perplexity believes this is a sad example of what happens when public data becomes a big part of a public company’s business model,” Perplexity added, noting that data licensing has become an increasingly important source of revenue for Reddit. 

In February, Reddit’s COO Jen Wong told the trade publication Adweek that AI licensing deals with Google and OpenAI made up nearly 10% of Reddit’s revenue. 

There was a lot missing from Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call.

CEO Elon Musk said nothing about demand for the company’s electric vehicles after a key federal tax credit expired last month. There was no mention of the Cybertruck or the impact of tariffs on auto parts. Investors got no sign for how the fourth quarter is shaping up.

That all helps explain why the stock sank almost 4% in extended trading.

Rather than focus on sales, margins and earnings (which missed estimates), Musk took a familiar path, making bold promises and laying out his futuristic vision for the business. It starts with robotaxis, and Musk’s view that skeptical investors and much of the public fail to see what’s coming.

“People just don’t don’t quite appreciate the degree to which this will take off — where it’s honestly — it’s going to be like a shock wave,” Musk said in his opening remarks. “We have millions of cars out there that, with a software update, become full self-driving cars and, you know, we’re making a couple million a year.”

Musk has for years promised that Tesla’s EVs will be able to do work for their owners, making them money while they sleep by ferrying passengers or goods around without a driver. But while Alphabet’s Waymo is aggressively entering new markets with its commercial robotaxi service, and Baidu’s Apollo Go is taking off in China and elsewhere, Tesla is still limited to a few pilot projects.

During Tesla’s prior earnings call in July, Musk predicted that the company would have autonomous ride hailing available to “probably half the population of The U.S. by the end of the year.” The company still doesn’t produce or sell cars that are safe to use without a human ready to steer or brake at all times.

On Wednesday, Musk said Tesla would have its robotaxi service operating without human drivers in Austin by the end of the year and that it would be running in eight to 10 cities by the close of 2025, at least with drivers on board.

As for its current fleet of cars, finance chief Vaibhav Taneja said on the call that the customer base for FSD Supervised, Tesla’s partially automated driving system, “is still small,” with 12% of users paying for the system. Taneja didn’t offer an average sale price that subscribers are paying after Tesla ran a number of promotions to drive uptake.

Tesla said in its investor deck that FSD revenue was lower than in the year-ago period, when the figure was $326 million. That means FSD accounted for less than 2% of total revenue in the latest quarter.

After robotaxis, Musk turned to humanoid robots, repeating his prediction that Optimus has the “potential to be the biggest product of all time.”

Optimus is Tesla’s bipedal humanoid robot that’s in development but not yet commercially deployed. Musk has previously said the robots will be so sophisticated that they can serve as factory workers or babysitters.

Now he’s raising the bar.

“Optimus will be an incredible surgeon,” Musk said on Wednesday. He said that with Optimus and self driving, “you can actually create a world where there is no poverty, where everyone has access to the finest medical care.”

Musk said Tesla will likely demo a new version of Optimus, which he called V3, in the first quarter of 2026.

At the end of the call, Musk kept the focus on robots but combined it with another topic of importance: his pay package.

In September, Tesla introduced a new pay plan that could be worth $1 trillion and increase Musk’s stake in the company by 12%. Tesla will hold its annual shareholder meeting in early November, when the plan will be up for a vote.

“If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army?” Musk said on the call. “I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence.”

He also took aim at proxy advisors Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis after the firms recommended shareholders vote against approving his new pay plan.

Musk said ISS and Glass Lewis “have no freaking clue,” and described them as “corporate terrorists.”

Representatives from the two firms didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the meantime, Tesla still relies on auto sales for the vast majority of its revenue. And while revenue increased 12% in the third quarter from a year earlier, that followed two straight year-over-year declines, and analysts expect a drop of about 2% in the fourth quarter.

Absent from the call was any discussion of what Tesla may be doing in the near term to restore consumer enthusiasm.

Tesla’s brand ranking declined to the 25th spot on the Interbrand 2025 Best Global Brands list out earlier this month, from 12th in 2024. The report said that “Tesla was once the main disruptive force in the automotive industry,” but Musk’s political activities along with a lack of new products “has led to concerns about Tesla’s ability to sustain high margins.”

Through Tesla’s online forum, investors submitted questions about new products in the pipeline. But on the call, investor relations lead Travis Axelrod twice refused to read them.

“This is not the appropriate venue to cover that,” he said.

WATCH: Traders break down Tesla’s Q3 results

The New Jersey attorney general sued Amazon on Wednesday, alleging the company has violated the rights of thousands of pregnant employees and staffers with disabilities who work in several of its facilities in the state.

The complaint, filed in Essex County Superior Court by the office of Attorney General Matthew Platkin, alleges Amazon violated state anti-discrimination law in how it treats pregnant employees and employees with disabilities when they request a work accommodation.

The state said the lawsuit follows a years-long investigation by its civil rights division into Amazon’s treatment of workers at warehouses across New Jersey.

According to the suit, the state’s investigation found that since October 2015, Amazon allegedly violated pregnant and disabled employees’ rights by placing them on unpaid leave when they request accommodations, denied them reasonable accommodations and “unreasonably” delayed its responses to workers’ requests.

It also alleged that Amazon “unlawfully” retaliates against these workers when they seek an accommodation, including by firing them. After workers are granted an accommodation, Amazon allegedly fired some employees for “failing to meet the company’s rigid productivity requirements.”

“There is no excuse for Amazon’s shameful treatment of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities,” Platkin said in a statement. “Amazon’s egregious conduct has caused enormous damage to pregnant workers and workers with disabilities in our state, and it must stop now.”

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement that accusations it doesn’t follow federal and state laws like New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law are “simply not true.”

“Ensuring the health and well-being of our employees is our top priority, and we’re committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for everyone,” Nantel said.

The company said it approves more than 99% of pregnancy accommodation requests submitted by workers. Amazon also denied placing pregnant workers automatically on leave, as well as claims that it unjustifiably rejects accommodation requests.

The complaint seeks to require that Amazon pay unspecified compensatory damages and civil fines, as well as court orders requiring the company to adjust its policies and to submit to monitoring and reporting requirements for five years, among other remedies.

One incident described in the complaint states that an unnamed pregnant employee received an accommodation that permitted her to take additional breaks and restricted her from lifting items heavier than 15 pounds.

Less than a month after the accommodation was approved, she was allegedly terminated for “not meeting packing numbers,” the lawsuit states, even though her accommodation required her pack fewer items each shift.

In another case, a pregnant employee’s accommodation request was closed due to a lack of medical paperwork when the requested documents weren’t required. While the worker tried to resubmit her request, she allegedly received three warnings for “poor productivity,” and was ultimately fired for “not making rate,” according to the complaint.

Amazon’s internal investigation of her case didn’t confirm that the employee was fired due to her pregnancy, but the company ultimately reinstated her with backpay, the lawsuit says.

“Amazon’s discriminatory practices and systemic failure to accommodate pregnant workers and workers with disabilities have the effect of pushing these employees out of Amazon’s workforce — the precise outcome the [Law Against Discrimination] was intended to prevent,” according to the lawsuit.

Amazon’s treatment of pregnant employees and others in its sprawling front-line workforce has come under scrutiny in the past.

The company, which is the nation’s second-largest private employer, has faced lawsuits from workers at its warehouses, who alleged the company failed to accommodate them once they were pregnant, then fired them for failing to meet performance standards, CNET reported.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year opened a probe into Amazon’s treatment of pregnant workers in its warehouses after six senators urged it to do so, citing a “concerning pattern of mistreatment.”

New York’s Division of Human Rights in 2022 filed a complaint against Amazon alleging it discriminates against pregnant workers and workers with disabilities at its facilities.

Amazon said it doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.