Elon Musk and Sam Altman spent part of their weekend exchanging public insults on X $TWTR after Apple $AAPL sued OpenAI on Friday over alleged trade secret theft, reigniting one of tech's most public executive rivalries.
The lawsuit gave Musk, who helms SpaceX and its xAI unit, fresh ammunition to dust off his long-standing "Scam Altman" nickname for the OpenAI chief. "He takes scamming to a whole new level," Musk wrote, according to CNBC. Separately, Musk linked the lawsuit to his own prior legal claims, writing that Altman had gone from "stealing an open source AI charity" to targeting "all of Apple's phone technology."
Altman answered with a post of his own on X — "homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters" — taking aim at Musk's push to place data centers in orbit as a way to meet AI's voracious power needs. Musk shot back that launches were on track for next year, adding a jab that Altman was welcome to witness them in person — pending approval from his "parole officer," according to CNBC.
Altman also offered his own metric for gauging OpenAI's success, posting on X: "there 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." The back-and-forth unfolded against a backdrop of dueling model launches: Grok 4.5 from SpaceX and GPT-5.6 Sol from OpenAI had both dropped earlier in the week.
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement, "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets."
At the heart of the weekend's online fireworks is Apple's Friday complaint, which names OpenAI, its hardware partner io, and a pair of ex-Apple employees — Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan and technical staffer Chang Liu — alleging they walked off with confidential hardware files, supplier data, and technical specifications. OpenAI acquired io, the design firm co-founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, for roughly $6.5 billion in 2025. More than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, according to the complaint.
The social media clash adds a fresh chapter to a long-running feud. The two men were among OpenAI's original founders back in 2015, though a falling-out over who should control the organization — and how it should be funded — eventually ended their partnership. That split eventually landed in court: Musk filed suit against Altman, OpenAI, and President Greg Brockman, and a federal jury handed down a verdict against him in May — a decision he has since vowed to challenge on appeal, according to Business Insider.
The rivalry now also plays out in financial markets. SpaceX's listing on June 12 set a record, pulling in $75 billion and ranking as the largest IPO in history. OpenAI's own path to the public markets remains uncertain; the company disclosed a confidential IPO filing in June, though its finance chief has indicated the actual listing may not arrive until late 2026 or even 2027, according to Yahoo Finance.