OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently described Elon Musk as a "bully" and "someone who clearly likes to get in fight" in an interview with American journalist Bari Weiss on the Free Press outlet. However, he acknowledged that Musk " did a lot to help OpenAI in the early days" and called him a "legendary entrepreneur."
Altman's sharp remarks likely stem from the ongoing legal feud between Musk and OpenAI, the AI company they co-founded. Musk had also tried to spar with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after acquiring Twitter and rebranding it as X. Despite much talk of a boxing match between the two, Musk eventually backed out, likely due to Zuckerberg's martial arts training.
It’s no secret that Altman and Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, are now on opposite sides. Musk, who left OpenAI's board in 2018, later founded xAI, his own AI company. Since then, xAI has developed the chatbot Grok, following Musk's criticism of OpenAI’s ChatGPT as a "propaganda machine."
Meanwhile, Musk has sued OpenAI multiple times, including over Altman’s plans to transition it from a non-profit to a profit-driven enterprise. Altman, in turn, claimed Musk was simply frustrated he wasn’t in charge of OpenAI. "I believe Elon would be happy about if he were in control of the company.," Altman said.
However, Altman refrained from accusing Musk of exploiting his potential influence over the incoming U.S. administration due to his closeness to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. "I think there are people who will really be a jerk on Twitter who will not abuse the system of a country," he said in the interview. Altman himself personally donated $1 million to Trump’s foundation.
The rift between Altman and Musk reveals not only their personal divide but also reflects a broader struggle over the future of artificial intelligence and how this technology should be managed and developed.
In March 2024, Musk filed his first lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of contract violations and breaches of fair competition laws. Three months later, he withdrew the suit but didn’t give up. By August 2024, Musk filed a new lawsuit alleging financial fraud, an "engagement in anticompetitive behavior," contract breaches and false advertising.
In the interview, Altman reiterated OpenAI’s claims that “it was Elon that most wanted OpenAI to be a for-profit at one point adding that Musk "made a bunch of proposals—like OpenAI being part of Tesla—mostly just to create a new for-profit that he was going to be in control of.”
Despite his criticisms of Altman, Musk has positioned xAI as a profit-driven company. On Monday, xAI announced raising $6 billion in a Series C funding round, giving the company an estimated market valuation of over $40 billion. The funding will enable xAI to strengthen its AI products and infrastructure.
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Running and developing a chatbot like Grok comes with hefty expenses — a single NVIDIA processor for AI calculations can cost over $40,00 and thousands are needed to train a model and handle user queries.
OpenAI also incurs massive costs, but unlike Grok, ChatGPT is considered far more reliable. This comparison became starker after xAI pulled its image generation model Aurora following embarrassing outputs, including one of Trump covered in blood.