Elon Musk and Sam Altman criticize each other in new posts about X, highlighting the billionaires’ long-standing feud over the evolution of OpenAI.
Musk and Altman, along with a group of engineers and scientists, helped launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research lab.
In 2018, Musk donated tens of millions of dollars to OpenAI before stepping down from the company’s board, but later opposed Altman’s efforts to build an “opaque web of for-profit OpenAI affiliates” in a lawsuit filed in California this year. The jury ruled in Altman’s favor, and Musk said he plans to appeal.
A few weeks later, Musk’s company SpaceX, which manages the X social platform, OpenAI challenger xAI Labs, and broadband internet service Starlink, completed a landmark initial public offering. SpaceX has raised a record $75 billion as it advances plans to launch data centers into space, along with ambitions for enterprise AI applications and interplanetary transportation. Meanwhile, OpenAI has secretly filed for its own IPO.
This week, SpaceX released Grok 4.5 generative AI models, and OpenAI debuted its own GPT-5.6 Sol. Musk and Altman have been promoting their respective releases in recent days, but their rivalry turned personal on Saturday.
Reply to a post about apple “The fraudster Altman strikes again…” wrote Musk, who filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday for alleged trade secret theft.
of tesla And SpaceX’s CEO has used the nickname “fraud Altman” to refer to OpenAI’s CEO several times over the past year. Minutes after posting, Musk pulled himself together and wrote, “He has taken fraud to a whole new level.”
Musk then shared a photo of Altman with the words, “I’m doing this because I love it.”
“‘This’ means fraud,” Musk wrote, along with two rolling-on-the-floor laughing emojis.
Musk then replied to the post, writing, “He may literally love scams more than any other person alive!”
The flurry of social activity caught Altman’s attention.
“Hey, you’re selling short-term space data centers to public market investors,” Altman wrote in his X post, which has garnered more than 11 million views.
Musk fired back, saying, “We’ll start flying next year. If your parole officer allows it, you might be able to come and see it.”
Separately, Altman explained Musk’s new wave of attention in the context of OpenAI’s new model release.
“There are plenty of benchmarks that suggest the 5.6 Sol is the best model in the world right now, but the most reliable way is that Elon has me hooked again,” Altman wrote about the X.
Elsewhere on X, the account @iliketeslas claimed that Altman is afraid of Apple. This also prompted a response from Altman.
“[I]am not afraid of Apple, but I have a lot of respect for them. They are a top-notch company,” Altman wrote.
In response to Altman’s post, Nikita Via, head of product at X, responded: “We have incredible trade secrets, some of them the best.”
Musk responded with an emoji of a face with tears of joy.
On Friday, an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC: “We are not interested in other companies’ trade secrets.”
Attention: Elon Musk loses legal battle with OpenAI’s Sam Altman
