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Elon Musk (L); Sam Altman (R)
Musk and Altman, former colleagues turned bitter rivals, are taking public shots at each other as they threaten to buy each other's companies.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman are making their competition everyone else's problem.
Two of the richest men in the world are currently "cockfighting but without the cocks," as journalist Kara Swisher describes it, resulting in the former colleagues turned bitter rivals taking public shots at each other as they threaten to buy each other's companies.
Here's everything you need to know about the history between the Tesla and OpenAI CEOs.
Altman and Musk are each one of the 12 co-founders of OpenAI, both serving as co-chairs during the company's beginnings in 2015. Though they were initially friends and colleagues, the two instead became competitors in 2018 when Musk left OpenAI.
Musk left OpenAI in 2018 after he failed to take sole ownership of the company by pushing to merge OpenAI with his other company, Tesla, according to OpenAI's account. He then launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI.
Musk also had disagreements with the company's structure, unsuccessfully pushing to shift the nonprofit to a for-profit model. Seven years later, Musk is the one suing OpenAI to prevent it from shifting to a for-profit model, claiming that it “intentionally courted and deceived Musk, preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence."
Both Musk and Altman are currently trying to win favor within Donald Trump's Administration, vying for a leg-up against their competitor's company.
Altman, who previously called Trump "terrible," professed his loyalty after Trump rescinded an executive order from Joe Biden placing guardrails around AI development, while also announcing a $500 billion private sector investment in AI infrastructure known as Stargate, which OpenAI will lead.
This led to some apparent jealousy from Musk, who has taken on a more involved role in the new administration as the head of DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk claimed that "they don't actually have the money," prompting Altman to respond "wrong, as you surely know," and invite Musk to the construction site of the first of as many as 10 data centers "already under way."
Musk and Altman's feud escalated in early February when Musk’s lawyer submitted a bid to OpenAI’s board of directors offering to buy all of its assets for $97.4 billion. Musk said in a press release: "It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was."
Altman responded on Twitter/X, which is owned by Musk, stating: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."
After Altman publicly rejected Musk's bid to buy OpenAI, Musk replied by calling him a "Swindler." He also responded to another thread and referred to him as "Scam Altman."
Musk has previously attempted to use Altman's past posts criticizing Trump against him, reposting several collected by journalist Kara Swisher, including some from as far back as 2016 where Altman states "I think Trump is terrible and few things would make me happier than him not being president," and "Back to work tomorrow on a new project to stop Trump."
Altman reportedly referred to Musk's actions as “just embarrassing to watch,” telling OpenAI employees that the board of directors rejected his bid to buy the company before formally receiving it. He told Axios that the company "is not for sale," adding that other “versions of Elon” have tried to “take control of OpenAI for a long time.”
“OpenAI’s mission is not for sale — to say nothing of the fact that, like, a competitor who is not able to beat us in the market and you know, instead is just trying to say, like, ‘I’m gonna buy this’ with total disregard for the mission is a likely path there,” Altman said.
Altman told Bloomberg the same day that he wished Musk “would just compete by building a better product.”
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Altman said. “I feel for the guy. I don’t think he’s, like, a happy person.”
