The long-running feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman flared up again over the weekend, with both entrepreneurs exchanging personal attacks on social media just days after unveiling competing artificial intelligence models and amid Apple’s lawsuit accusing OpenAI of trade secret theft.
The latest public clash escalates the increasingly fierce rivalry between two of the AI industry’s most influential figures, whose relationship has deteriorated dramatically since they jointly founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research laboratory.
The dispute comes at a pivotal moment for both companies. SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace company, recently completed a record-breaking $75 billion initial public offering while promoting plans to deploy data centers in space and expand into enterprise AI. OpenAI, meanwhile, has confidentially filed for its own IPO as competition among leading AI developers intensifies.
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The latest exchange was triggered after Apple filed a lawsuit on Friday accusing OpenAI of misappropriating trade secrets related to consumer hardware development.
Reacting to the lawsuit on X, Musk wrote: “Scam Altman strikes again …”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who has repeatedly referred to Altman as “Scam Altman” over the past year, intensified the criticism moments later.
“He takes scamming to a whole new level,” Musk added.
He subsequently shared a picture of Altman carrying the caption, “I’m doing this because I love it.”
“By ‘this’ he means scamming,” Musk wrote, before adding in another post: “He might literally love scamming more than any human alive!”
Altman responded by mocking SpaceX’s recently announced ambitions to deploy computing infrastructure in orbit.
“[H]omeboy you’re the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters,” Altman wrote on X.
Musk replied by highlighting SpaceX’s timeline for the project.
“We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves,” he wrote.
The exchange quickly broadened beyond the Apple lawsuit to include the companies’ latest AI model releases. Earlier this week, Musk’s xAI unveiled its Grok 4.5 model, while OpenAI introduced GPT-5.6 Sol, with both executives spending several days promoting their respective systems.
Altman suggested Musk’s criticism reflected OpenAI’s technological lead.
“[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 posted.
The public confrontation is the latest addition to years of legal and commercial conflict between the two executives. Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 after contributing tens of millions of dollars to the organization. He later sued OpenAI and Altman, arguing that the company had abandoned its original nonprofit mission by creating what he described as “an opaque web of for-profit OpenAI affiliates.”
Last month, a California jury ruled in favor of Altman and OpenAI. Musk has since said he intends to appeal the decision.
The rivalry has intensified as xAI and OpenAI compete directly to develop increasingly capable frontier AI models while pursuing major commercial opportunities across enterprise software, cloud infrastructure and consumer applications.
The Apple lawsuit has added another layer of scrutiny to OpenAI. The iPhone maker alleges that OpenAI misappropriated confidential information to accelerate its hardware ambitions.
But OpenAI has denied the allegations.
“We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC on Friday.
Altman also dismissed suggestions on X that the lawsuit reflected concerns about Apple itself.
“[I] am not afraid of Apple, but I have tremendous respect for them. s-tier company,” he wrote.
His comment prompted X’s Head of Product, Nikita Bier, to joke: “Incredible trade secrets as well, some of the best.”
Musk responded with a laughing emoji.