During the last year, the dispute between the heavyweights of Silicon Valley, Sam Altman and Elon Musk, has resulted in personal attacks, attacks on social networks and demands. Musk calls his rival “Scam Altman” and “Swindly Sam.” Altman has said that Musk “cannot be happy” and that “his whole life develops from a position of insecurity.” Just this week, after Musk announced that he plans to sue Apple for allegedly promoting Altman Openai in the application store instead of his own startup, Xai, Altman accused Musk of manipulating X to “benefit himself and his own companies”. Musk responded by telling Altman as a liar.
Both men co -founded Openai as a non -profit organization in 2015, before Musk left the Board of Directors of the organization three years later, after a failed attempt to take power. After the launch of Chatgpt by Openai in the late 2022, Musk founded XAI in March 2023 and promoted it as the “Anti-Woke” alternative. Last year, Musk demanded Altman to prevent OpenAi from becoming a profitable entity. Altman contradicted, claiming that Musk had worked tirelessly to torpedo Openai.
But the rivalry between Openai and XAI is now just a front in the broader war between Altman and Musk. Altman has been investing, both through OpenAI and with his own extensive investment portfolio, in the development of products and technologies aimed at several of Musk’s businesses.
Altman supports Merge Labs, a new startup of brain-computer interface Financial Times this week. Altman is co -founder of the new company, which seeks to raise capital with an assessment of 850 million dollars. (Interestingly, Altman is also a small investor in Neuralink). Musk co -founded Neuralink (recent assessment: 9000 million dollars) in 2016 and is its largest individual shareholder.
Meanwhile, Altman is positioning Openai to compete directly with X Musk, the social networks platform previously known as Twitter. Openai is working on the creation of a branch of social networks that would be a “social network similar to X”, according to The Verge which first reported on these plans in April. Openai’s raid on social networks could represent a great threat to X. According to the last count, X has about 600 million monthly users (according to statista). Openai states that ChatgPT is more popular, with 700 million users Weekly .
And Altman also goes after Tesla. Compared to the previous year, Tesla vehicles collapsed 13.5% in the second quarter of 2025, which led Mush to focus on autonomous taxis as a possible future growth area for its manufacturer of electric vehicles. “My prediction is that by the end of next year we will have hundreds of thousands, if not more than one million, of Teslas making autonomous driving in the United States,” Musk said in May in The CNBC . Maybe. But there is little evidence to support Musk’s statement, since no Tesla vehicle is currently approved for total autonomous driving. In June, Openai announced that it had been associated with the Autonomous Autonomous Driving Software Manufacturer Applied Intuition (recent assessment: 15 billion dollars) to “advance next generation experiences promoted by AI in vehicles around the world.” Altman then praised Openai’s progress in the development of autonomous driving technology, while indirectly dismissed Tesla’s progress: “We have a new technology that could make the autonomous driving of standard cars much better than any current approach,” Altman said in his brother’s podcast, Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Altman has also backed the company Longshot Space, who dreams of competing with Musk Spacex with a gigantic cannon that launches satellites into the orbit (seriously). He has also invested in Glydways, another robot cars startup that one day could compete with autonomous Robotaxis of Tesla.
Neither Musk nor Altman responded to requests for comments forbes For this article.
Musk, 54, and Altman, 40, did not always disagree. They met in the early 2010s, when Altman presided over the startup incubator and Combinator and Musk worked on the development of Spacex and Tesla. Both connected thanks to their concern shared for the dangers of artificial intelligence, and co -founded Openai in 2015 as a non -profit organization with the mission of developing AI responsible. Musk was the largest individual sponsor of the organization, donating 44 million dollars in 2016 and 2017.
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Sam Altman despises Elon Musk and now goes for his companies; We know this
Musk left Openai’s board in 2018 after allegedly trying, without success, merging the entity with Tesla. Even so, both had a good relationship. In 2019, during a difficult period for Tesla, Altman lashed out at those who opposed the manufacturer of electric vehicles and warned that betting against Elon is historically an error. When Openai launched its chatgpt product to the public in November 2022, Musk praised the chatbot as “incredibly good” and rebuked the New York Times for not having written enough about chatgpt.
The good vibes began to decline in 2023, while Musk sowed the seeds of Xai. Musk published a meme that February affirmed that Chatgpt had usurped traditional media as “the captain of propaganda.” The following month, Musk expressed concern about the “exclusive access to the entire openai base code” that Microsoft had received as part of its investment of 13 billion dollars in the startup. Even so, both maintained at least one public friendly relationship, exchanging philosophical jokes and observations. “We live in a very interesting time,” Musk said in October 2023, in response to Altman’s reflections on life today.
A month later, Musk made fun of Chatgpt, describing him as “insufferable”, and used Grok (Xai chatbot) to generate negative criticism. “The progressive mentality virus, fundamentally antihuman, has deeply rooted in Chatgpt!” Musk stripped in a tweet. After a brief coup d’etat that briefly dismissed Altman as CEO of Openai, Musk warned that the organization needed “directors who thoroughly understood AI and face Sam” and that “human civilization is at stake.”
Musk accelerated the conflict in early 2024 by presenting an offer of 97.4 billion dollars for OpenAi assets (although they were not on sale) and subsequently demanded Openai, Altman and his co -founder partner Greg Brockman in California, claiming that his plans to convert Openai into a profit company violated the foundational contract of the non -profit organization. Musk withdrew his lawsuit before a state judge could decide whether he dismissed her, but subsequently filed a similar claim in a federal court. In April of this year, Openai contradicted Musk, claiming that he participated in a “years -year -old campaign against OpenAi in courts and publications in social networks, and that her offer of 97.4 billion dollars was a” false offer “designed to harm Openai. The judge denied Musk’s request to block Openai’s restructuring plans, dismissed some of his claims and allowed Openai to move forward. A jury trial was scheduled for next year.
As the animosity between the two intensifies, many in Silicon Valley enjoy the show. Vinod Khosla, the legendary billionaire investor who has warned about the potential dangers of AI, affirms that, ultimately, the rivalry between the two will benefit the ecosystem as a whole. “More competition is always good,” he said a Forbes by email.
Good luck trying to convince Musk or Altman of that.
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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