In a new whistleblower lawsuit, Figure AI’s former lead product safety engineer accuses the Silicon Valley humanoid robotics startup of ignoring the danger its humanoid robots pose in its rush to get them into households.
Robert Gruendel, a veteran robot safety engineer with more than 20 years of experience, alleges in new lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California that he was terminated after repeatedly warning executives that Figure’s AI robots could seriously injure employees and future customers. According to the filing, Figure’s flagship humanoid robot, the Figure 02, produced more than enough force to fracture a human skull during testing.
“Unfortunately, (Gruendel’s) commitment to safety, and to protecting Figure’s personnel and future customers, clashed with Figure’s self-declared Core Values to ‘Move Fast & Be Technically Fearless,’ maintain ‘aggressive optimism,’ and ‘bring a commercially viable humanoid to market,” the lawsuit says.
The dispute comes as Figure aggressively pushes toward home deployments after securing more than $1 billion in funding in recent months. The NVIDIA-backed startup is valued at a staggering $39 billion and likely holds the largest war chest in the humanoid robotics race. Figure’s stated goal is to ship more than 100,000 units in the next four years.
The lawsuit says Figure executives told Gruendel safety was a top priority when they extended him an offer in August 2024. He had a “soft start” the following September and officially started as the startup’s principal robotic safety engineer on October 7, 2024. Upon joining, Gruendel says he immediately raised concerns about the lack of safety procedures, incident-reporting system, and risk-assessment processes.
Gruendel says he grew increasingly concerned as Figure pivoted to deploying its humanoids into consumer homes, even though the robots were capable of extreme force, lacked reliable presence sensing, and had not completed the safety certifications required for fully autonomous operations. The safety engineer says he developed a detailed roadmap after founder/CEO Brett Adcock pressed to understand what would be required, but leadership minimized or sidelined safety concerns in its rush toward commercialization.
The lawsuit lists a series of concerns that worried Gruendel about Figure’s pivot to homes:
- In impact tests, the F.02 robot generated forces more than 20x higher than the human pain threshold and more than enough to crack an adult’s head open.
- During malfunction, one of the robots allegedly punched a stainless-steel refrigerator, leaving a 0.64 cm (1/4 inch) deep gash, narrowly missing an employee.
- The robots behaved unpredictably, including coming within two feet of kicking a person in the head.
- Figure removed and downgraded safety features, including an E-Stop certification and a physical safety feature because an engineer “did not like the aesthetic.”
- Employees stood close to the robots without required barriers, training, or reliable emergency-stop controls.
Gruendel alleges he repeatedly flagged safety hazards to Adcock and chief engineer Kyle Edelberg that were not taken seriously because of Figure’s “move fast” culture. Leadership allegedly blocked multiple proposed risk-reduction measures because they would make the robot look less impressive to investors.
The complaint accuses Figure executives of defrauding investors after presenting a detailed and rigorous product-safety roadmap during testing, only to quietly scale back those plans once the round closed. According to court documents, Edelberg significantly downgraded key safety commitments that investors had been told were foundational to the robot’s development timeline.
Gruendel was fired abruptly on September 2, 2025, despite receiving a raise and a positive performance review just weeks earlier. His July 29 review praised his “continued growth and impact.” He said the official reason given was a “change in business direction” after he submitted a series of written complaints regarding safety downgrades and hazardous robot behavior. He calls the dismissal retaliatory.
The safety engineered previously worked at Amazon as a principal engineer focused on safety and compliance. On LinkedIn, his last public post on June 30, 2025 offered an update on Figure AI’s safety measures.
“Our safety-forward approach to product development consistently prioritizes the highest risks,” he said. “Through rigorous adherence to relevant consensus standards, iterative testing to extremes, and continuous improvement, we have designed what we believe is the safest Li-ion battery on the humanoid robot market.”
Gruendel is suing for whistleblower retaliation and wrongful termination, seeking lost wages, benefits, career damages, and additional compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages. Figure has not filed a response, but a company spokesperson told CNBC Gruendel was “terminated for poor performance” and called his allegations “falsehoods that Figure will thoroughly discredit in court.”
Adcock announced in early 2025 that Figure was accelerating its push into homes thanks to advancements to its in-house vision-language-action (VLA) model called Helix. Figure is competing with a growing number of US firms, including Tesla, 1X Technologies, Sunday Robotics, and Tangible Robots.