Elon Musk and Sam Altman have criticized each other in new posts on X, highlighting the billionaires’ long-running battle over the evolution of OpenAI.
Musk and Altman helped launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research lab with a group of engineers and scientists.
In 2018, Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors after donating tens of millions of dollars to the organization, although he later objected to Altman’s efforts to create an “opaque network of commercial affiliates of OpenAI” in a lawsuit that went to trial in California this year. The jury ruled in Altman’s favor, and Musk said he would appeal.
Musk’s relationship with Altman and OpenAI soured after Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO hired OpenAI engineers to rework Tesla’s Autopilot technology and poached artificial intelligence researcher Andrei Karpathy from OpenAI. Musk pressured OpenAI to give him full control and merge the lab with Tesla. Altman and other OpenAI board members rebuffed Musk, who stopped making promised contributions to OpenAI, leaving the company in dire financial straits.
Weeks after the trial, Musk’s company SpaceX, which controls social platform X, the OpenAI-challenging xAI lab and broadband internet service Starlink, completed its landmark initial public offering. SpaceX has raised a record $75 billion as it advances plans to launch data centers into space, as well as ambitions in enterprise artificial intelligence applications and interplanetary transportation. Meanwhile, OpenAI has confidentially filed for its own IPO.
This week, SpaceX released its generative AI model Grok 4.5, and OpenAI unveiled its own GPT-5.6 Sol model. Musk and Altman had been promoting their releases for days, but on Saturday the rivalry turned personal. Musk previously sued Apple and OpenAI, alleging they engaged in anti-competitive practices that caused Grok to rank lower in app store rankings than other AI chatbots and image generators.
SpaceX has sought to expand into artificial intelligence through its $60 billion all-share acquisition of Cursor, which the company plans to close in the third quarter following regulatory scrutiny. The deal will help SpaceX compete with Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, which quickly write source code for applications.
In response to X’s message about Apple Filing a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday for allegedly stealing trade secrets, Musk wrote: “The Altman scam strikes again…”
Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO has used the moniker “Conman Altman” several times over the past year to refer to OpenAI’s CEO. Minutes after his post, Musk doubled down, writing: “He takes cheating to a whole new level.”
Musk then posted a photo of Altman with the words, “I do this because I love it.”
“By this he means cheating,” Musk wrote, including two laughing emojis rolling on the floor.
Musk then responded to the post by writing, “He probably literally loves scams more than any living person!”
Altman’s attention was attracted by vigorous social activity.
“(H)omeboy, you’re the one selling short-term space data centers to public market investors,” Altman wrote in his own X post, which has received more than 11 million views.
“We will start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves,” Musk replied.
Separately, Altman noted a new wave of attention from Musk in the context of the release of a new OpenAI model.
“(T)here are a lot of tests that suggest the 5.6 Sol is the best model in the world right now, but the surest way to tell is that Elon is obsessed with me again,” Altman wrote on X.
Elsewhere on X, the account @iliketeslas claimed that Altman is afraid of Apple. This also provoked Altman’s reaction.
“(I’m) not afraid of Apple, but I have great respect for it. Top notch company,” Altman wrote.
Altman’s post prompted Nikita Beer, X’s head of product, to respond: “And incredible trade secrets, some of the best.”
Musk responded with a tears of joy emoji.
On Friday, an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC: “We are not interested in other companies’ trade secrets.”
— CNBC’s Laura Kolodny contributed to this report.
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