Elon Musk, Sam Altman feud reignites after Apple sues OpenAI
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reignited their almost decade-long feud over the weekend, buying and selling barbs after Apple sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing its commerce secrets and techniques.
In a Saturday submit on X, Musk replied to a different submit asserting that OpenAI was suing Altman’s firm, invoking his longtime nickname for Altman: “Rip-off Altman strikes once more…”
A couple of minutes later, Musk jabbed at Altman once more, writing: “He takes scamming to a complete new stage.”
The world’s richest man continued his barrage of posts with a picture of Altman that included the phrases “I’m doing this as a result of I adore it” – writing, “By ‘this’ he means scamming.”
“He may actually love scamming greater than any human alive!” Musk added.
The stream of posts apparently caught Altman’s consideration, who shortly took the chance to lash out at Musk’s personal enterprise ventures – together with his debut of rocket-launch agency SpaceX on the Nasdaq final month, which was the largest-ever IPO. OpenAI has filed for its personal IPO.
“[H]omeboy you’re the one sellling [sic] public market traders on short-term house datacenters,” Altman wrote in a Saturday submit that has racked up almost 15 million views.
Musk replied: “We begin flying them subsequent 12 months. Possibly you’ll be able to come see them in case your parole officer approves. After stealing an open supply AI charity, you then stole all of Apple’s telephone expertise! Wow. What do you intend for an encore? That’s robust to beat.”
In a lawsuit filed Friday, Apple alleged that “at each stage… OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s commerce secrets and techniques.” In response to the criticism, one junior worker improperly used an Apple worker’s login credentials to entry firm servers.
Apple additionally alleges that OpenAI {hardware} chief Tang Tan – who spent 24 years at Apple, together with as vice chairman of product design – solicited confidential info from Apple workers interviewing for jobs. Tan allegedly inspired them to carry “precise components” from Apple to “present and inform” periods.
The lawsuit harks again to Apple’s bruising authorized battle towards Google’s Android ecosystem greater than a decade in the past – throughout which Steve Jobs vowed to wage “thermonuclear battle” towards what he referred to as a “stolen product.”
Apple additionally beforehand accused Samsung of “slavishly” copying the iPhone with its smartphones. Samsung denied the allegations, and after years of courtroom fights the businesses settled in 2018.
However Altman took Musk’s mockery on Saturday as an opportunity to advertise OpenAI’s latest chatbot.
Final week, OpenAI launched GPT-5.6 Sol whereas Musk launched Grok 4.5.
“[T]listed below are lots of benchmarks that recommend 5.6 sol is the very best mannequin on the planet proper now, however essentially the most dependable technique to inform is that elon is obsessive about me once more,” Altman taunted.
Altman additionally replied to a submit from a Tesla fan account accusing the OpenAI exec of being petrified of Apple, responding: “[I] am not afraid of apple [sic], however i [sic] have super respect for them. s-tier [sic] firm.”
Nikita Bier, who leads X’s product division, responded: “Unbelievable commerce secrets and techniques as nicely, among the finest.”
Musk and Altman initially labored collectively to launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit AI analysis lab – however they devolved from colleagues into public enemies as Musk launched a authorized battle towards OpenAI.
In 2018, Musk left OpenAI’s board after donating tens of thousands and thousands to the nonprofit. He later sued the corporate for making an attempt to transition right into a for-profit car, alleging he was misled into believing it could keep a nonprofit.
A jury dominated in favor of Altman and OpenAI, although Musk has mentioned he plans to attraction the case.
Tensions between the pair heated up after Musk introduced over AI researchers and engineering staffers from OpenAI for his personal companies, whereas additionally pressuring OpenAI to permit him to merge the lab with Tesla.
After OpenAI refused, Musk ended his donations to the corporate.
Final summer season, Musk sued Apple and OpenAI, alleging they colluded to demote Grok within the App Retailer’s rankings of AI chatbots. The case is ongoing and has not gone to trial.
