OpenAI CEO Sam Altman couldn’t wait for the second-generation Tesla Roadster to be released. He said he had filed for a refund for a pre-order he placed more than seven years ago.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman couldn’t wait for the second-generation Tesla Roadster to be released. He said he had filed for a refund for a pre-order he placed more than seven years ago.
In his post on X (Twitter), Altman shared a screenshot of an email from July 2018 confirming payment of $45,000 for a second-generation Tesla Roadster. He also included screenshots of a subsequent email he sent this Thursday requesting a cancellation of the order and a refund of $50,000.
«I’ve really been waiting for this car! And I understand the delays. But 7.5 years is a very long time,» Altman wrote.
The new Roadster was one of Tesla’s most highly publicized launches, Business Insider reports. In 2017, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the Roadster «will be the fastest production car ever made.»
Production of the new Roadster was originally scheduled to begin in 2020, but has been repeatedly delayed. Musk told investors in October 2024 that Tesla was finalizing the Roadster design, but the company was focused on its core mission of achieving a «sustainable energy future.»
«We’re working on it, but it has to come after things that have a more serious impact on the world. So just thank you to all of our long-suffering Tesla Roadster pre-order holders,» Musk said.
Sam Altman and Elon Musk fell out after Musk began legal proceedings against the company OpenAI, which they founded in 2015.
Musk, an early investor and board member of OpenAI, sued the company, claiming it had betrayed the purpose of its founding as a nonprofit research lab that works for the good of society rather than for profit.
After that, Altman and Musk repeatedly exchanged insults on social media .
«For a long time, I thought of him as an incredible hero, a great treasure to humanity. Now my feelings have changed. He has incredible qualities, and I am grateful to him for a lot of what he has done. There are a lot of things that I consider traits that I don’t like,» Altman said of Musk in September 2025.
OpenAI announced Tuesday that it has completed a restructuring. As part of the changes, the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, which is part of OpenAI, will now control a new public benefit corporation, OpenAI Group PBC.
It recently became known that OpenAI could go public as early as the second half of 2026 with a valuation of up to $1 trillion .
