SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have had another public spat on the social network X. The reason was the news of Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have had another public spat on the social network X. The reason was the news of Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI.
Apple filed a high-profile lawsuit Friday against OpenAI, its hardware partner io, and two former Apple employees, accusing them of stealing trade secrets. OpenAI acquired io, a design firm led by legendary former Apple designer Jony Ive, last year, and is developing a line of consumer hardware products based on AI. In a brief statement in response to the lawsuit, OpenAI said the company has no interest in other people’s trade secrets, Business Insider reported .
It was this news that once again drew Musk’s attention to Altman — the billionaire spent part of the weekend criticizing the head of OpenAI, whom he regularly calls «Scam Altman» (a play on words).
Altman responded ironically, linking Musk’s attention to the success of the company’s latest model. «Many benchmarks indicate that the 5.6 sol is now the best model in the world,» he wrote in X, adding that the most reliable indicator of this is that «Elon is obsessed with me again.»
In response, Altman also called Musk a fraud: «Dude, you’re the one selling short-term data centers in space to public market investors.» Musk replied that SpaceX would start «launching them» next year, and jokingly added that Altman could visit the company if his «parole officer» would allow it.
Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but their relationship later soured over issues of control, funding, and direction of the company. In 2024, Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and company president Greg Brockman, accusing them of defrauding early charitable contributions because OpenAI eventually became a for-profit entity, despite initially being a nonprofit. In May, a federal jury found against Musk; he said he would appeal the verdict.
Musk founded a rival company, xAI, in 2023, which is now part of SpaceX. On Saturday, he wrote on X: «After stealing an open source charity, you stole all of Apple’s phone technology!» — referring to the accusation in the lawsuit that Musk himself lost. Altman had not responded to the attack at the time of publication.
