Apple sued OpenAI for stealing trade secrets. That lawsuit lit a match between two old friends turned rivals. Elon Musk jumped on X to call Sam Altman a scammer. Altman fired back, poking at Musk's space data center plans.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and left its board in 2018, saw an opening. He replied to a post about the lawsuit, writing: "Scam Altman strikes again …" He added, "He takes scamming to a whole new level."
Altman responded by mocking Musk's plans for space-based data centers. "Homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters," Altman wrote. Musk shot back: "We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves."
Nikita Bier, head of product at X, responded to Altman's post about Apple: "Incredible trade secrets as well, some of the best." Musk responded with a laughing-crying emoji.
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An OpenAI representative told CNBC on Friday, "We have no desire to obtain competitors' confidential information."
SpaceX completed a record $75 billion IPO and agreed to acquire AI coding firm Cursor for $60 billion in stock. Meanwhile, OpenAI filed confidentially for its own IPO, while Altman claimed its GPT-5.6 Sol model is the best. The two companies are also jockeying on model releases: SpaceX rolled out Grok 4.5, and OpenAI put forward GPT-5.6 Sol.
The personal animosity between Musk and Altman has deep roots. Musk also plans to appeal the jury verdict in his earlier lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI. That earlier legal fight, filed in 2024, alleged that OpenAI had abandoned its nonprofit mission to become a for-profit entity heavily backed by Microsoft.
A jury ruled against Musk, but he is pressing on. The Apple lawsuit adds a fresh legal front to an already tangled battlefield.
The friendship between Musk and Altman began to fracture when Musk recruited OpenAI engineers to overhaul Tesla's Autopilot system and poached Andrej Karpathy, a prominent AI researcher, from OpenAI. That move, combined with the shift in OpenAI's corporate structure, set the stage for years of public sparring.
Beyond the legal and financial battles, the two companies are competing head-to-head on artificial intelligence models. SpaceX released Grok 4.5, while OpenAI launched GPT-5.6 Sol. Each claims superiority, and the war of words shows no sign of easing.
This feud shows no signs of cooling down. With Apple's lawsuit, rival IPO filings, and a deepening personal war of words, the AI industry's biggest personalities are clashing on multiple fronts.
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