Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reignited their nearly decade-long feud over the weekend, trading barbs after Apple sued OpenAI for allegedly stealing its trade secrets.
In a Saturday post on X, Musk replied to another post announcing that Apple was suing Altman’s company, invoking his longtime nickname for Altman: “Scam Altman strikes again…”
A few minutes later, Musk jabbed at Altman again, writing: “He takes scamming to a whole new level.”
The world’s richest man continued his barrage of posts with an image of Altman that included the words “I’m doing this because I love it” – writing, “By ‘this’ he means scamming.”
“He might literally love scamming more than any human alive!” Musk added.
The stream of posts apparently caught Altman’s attention, who quickly took the opportunity to lash out at Musk’s own business ventures – including his debut of rocket-launch firm SpaceX on the Nasdaq last month, which was the largest-ever IPO. OpenAI has filed for its own IPO.
“[H]omeboy you’re the one sellling [sic] public market investors on short-term space datacenters,” Altman wrote in a Saturday post that has racked up nearly 15 million views.
Musk replied: “We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves. After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple’s phone technology! Wow. What do you plan for an encore? That’s tough to beat.”
In a lawsuit filed Friday, Apple alleged that “at every level… OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets.” According to the complaint, one junior employee improperly used an Apple employee’s login credentials to access company servers.
Apple also alleges that OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan – who spent 24 years at Apple, including as vice president of product design – solicited confidential information from Apple employees interviewing for jobs. Tan allegedly encouraged them to bring “actual parts” from Apple to “show and tell” sessions.
The lawsuit harks back to Apple’s bruising legal war against Google’s Android ecosystem more than a decade ago – during which Steve Jobs vowed to wage “thermonuclear war” against what he called a “stolen product.”
Apple also previously accused Samsung of “slavishly” copying the iPhone with its smartphones. Samsung denied the allegations, and after years of courtroom fights the companies settled in 2018.
But Altman took Musk’s mockery on Saturday as a chance to promote OpenAI’s newest chatbot.
Last week, OpenAI released GPT-5.6 Sol while Musk launched Grok 4.5.
“[T]here are a lot of benchmarks that suggest 5.6 sol is the best model in the world right now, but the most reliable way to tell is that elon is obsessed with me again,” Altman taunted.
Altman also replied to a post from a Tesla fan account accusing the OpenAI exec of being scared of Apple, responding: “[I] am not afraid of apple [sic], but i [sic] have tremendous respect for them. s-tier [sic] company.”
Nikita Bier, who leads X’s product division, responded: “Incredible trade secrets as well, some of the best.”
Musk and Altman initially worked together to launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab – but they devolved from colleagues into public enemies as Musk launched a legal battle against OpenAI.
In 2018, Musk left OpenAI’s board after donating tens of millions to the nonprofit. He later sued the company for attempting to transition into a for-profit vehicle, alleging he was misled into believing it would stay a nonprofit.
A jury ruled in favor of Altman and OpenAI, though Musk has said he plans to appeal the case.
Tensions between the pair heated up after Musk brought over AI researchers and engineering staffers from OpenAI for his own businesses, while also pressuring OpenAI to allow him to merge the lab with Tesla.
After OpenAI refused, Musk ended his donations to the company.
Last summer, Musk sued Apple and OpenAI, alleging they colluded to demote Grok in the App Store’s rankings of AI chatbots. The case is ongoing and has not gone to trial.
