It may be hard to imagine now, but Sam Altman and Elon Musk were once business partners with a shared idealism about artificial intelligence and the ways it could benefit — or harm — humanity. But a divergence in philosophies fractured their apparent bromance, leading Musk to form his own AI company, sue his former friend and plot a hostile takeover of the company they started together.
What Happened Between Elon Musk and Sam Altman?
Elon Musk and Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015. Musk stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2018 after clashing with Altman and other leaders over the company’s direction and control. Since then, their relationship has unraveled into a very public feud. Musk has criticized OpenAI for abandoning its nonprofit, open-source roots and for making AI models that are too “woke” and left-leaning. Altman, meanwhile, has backed several companies that directly compete with those owned and operated by Musk.
As the two continue to exchange blows in court filings and social media posts, it’s evident that their beef is bigger than their race to develop the world’s most advanced AI model. Their personal rivalry has shaped the direction of their companies and spilled into American politics, too. Even tech giants like Meta and Apple have been pulled into the fray.
Below is a timeline of the Musk-Altman feud, from their founding of OpenAI together to Musk’s latest lawsuit against OpenAI and Apple.
Musk and Altman Launch OpenAI
Altman, the former president of startup accelerator Y Combinator, first met Musk in the early 2010s. The two reportedly began meeting regularly for dinner, and they discovered a shared concern about the future of artificial intelligence — particularly the unchecked dominance of Google’s DeepMind. They worried that safety wasn’t being prioritized, even as the technology inched closer toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI that surpasses human-level cognition. In 2015, they worked together to form OpenAI as a “counterweight,” aiming to build AGI that would be safe, transparent and aligned with humanity’s interests over commercial ones.
Musk Resigns From OpenAI
OpenAI started out as a nonprofit, but by 2017, the co-founders realized they would need to become a for-profit company to raise enough capital to purchase the computing power necessary to process vast troves of data. When Altman and other founding engineers floated the idea of transitioning to a for-profit structure, Musk initially agreed, according to archived conversations published by OpenAI. But Musk also insisted on having a majority equity stake, “absolute control” and to be the CEO of the for-profit company, according to OpenAI. Musk stepped down as co-chair in 2018, saying he thought he had a better chance of creating artificial general intelligence through his other company, Tesla.
Altman was then appointed CEO, and OpenAI created a capped, for-profit subsidiary that reports to the nonprofit organization governed by a board of directors. After raising $1 billion from Microsoft in 2019, OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022 and, within five days, reached 1 million users. The following year, Microsoft invested another $10 billion in the company.
Musk Begins to Criticize OpenAI
Shortly after ChatGPT launched in 2022, Musk said it was “scary good” and “not far from dangerously strong AI.” Around this time, he also cut off OpenAI’s access to Twitter’s data, which the company had licensed for about $2 million per year, according to The New York Times. As ChatGPT continued to grow in popularity in early 2023, Musk started to voice resentment about OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary, its partnership with Microsoft and its decision to stop releasing open-source models after the launch of GPT-2 in 2019. (OpenAI later released two open-source foundation models in 2025 following the release of an open-weight model from Chinese startup DeepSeek.)
“OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft,” Musk posted on X in February 2023. “Not what I intended at all.”
For what it’s worth, Altman has stressed that the company operates independently of Microsoft. As part of the partnership, OpenAI’s models would run on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, and Microsoft would have the rights to license OpenAI’s technology for its products.
When Altman was asked about Musk’s criticisms, Altman told the Lex Fridman Podcast that it hurt to hear these criticisms from a hero of his, but despite his “jerk” social media persona, he believed Musk was genuinely concerned about the future of AGI.
Musk Launches Rival AI Firm
A month after publicly supporting a pause on all AI development, Musk announced he was building an AI company of his own. He argued that ChatGPT was trained to be “woke” or liberal, and that these “deceptive” training practices could lead to “AI dystopia.”
Musk’s AI company, xAI, launched in July 2023, and released its Grok chatbot four months later. Musk said Grok was designed with “an absolute focus on the truth, whether politically correct or not.”
Musk Sues OpenAI
Musk sued OpenAI in late February 2024, claiming the company breached their original agreement to form a nonprofit company that releases open source AI models. Musk withdrew the state-level lawsuit in June 2024 and filed a federal lawsuit two months after that.
Similar to the earlier lawsuit, it alleged that Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, manipulated Musk into donating $44 million to a nonprofit, open source company that would prioritize AI safety over profits. The two “betrayed” Musk by partnering with Microsoft and establishing “an opaque web of for-profit OpenAI affiliates, engaged in rampant self-dealing,” according to the lawsuit. “The perfidy and deceit is of Shakespearean proportions,” Musk’s lawyers proclaimed.
A couple months later, Musk expanded the lawsuit, claiming Microsoft and OpenAI violated antitrust laws by asking investors not to invest in rival AI companies. Musk also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction blocking OpenAI from restructuring its pro-profit subsidiary into a “public benefit corporation,” which is a for-profit company that, by law, must consider social or public benefits alongside shareholder interests. OpenAI has claimed that this lawsuit is part of Musk’s yearslong harassment campaign to bring down a business that succeeded after he left.
Around this same time the revised lawsuit was filed, Musk told the Tucker Carlson Network, “I don’t trust Sam Altman, and I don’t think we want to have the most powerful AI in the world controlled by someone who’s not trustworthy.”
Musk Criticizes Trump’s Stargate Project
Musk was an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, donating $288 million to him and various other Republicans. Shortly after Trump won, he appointed Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a temporary advisory body tasked with cutting government spending. So Musk was more than a little miffed to see Trump and his rival Altman announce The Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative, without so much as informing him beforehand.
Like several other tech executives, Altman moved quickly to get in Trump’s good graces after his 2024 election win, even sitting alongside the president at his inauguration. Just days into the new administration, Altman offered up an early public relations victory: a press conference announcing Stargate. Jointly funded by OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia and SoftBank, the initiative aims to build 20 data centers over the next four years, which Trump said would create more than 100,000 jobs.
Musk, who by this point was Trump’s right-hand man, did not appreciate being kept in the dark about an opportunity squarely in his new business domain. Musk took to X to bash the project, claiming the organizers don’t have the funds to back up their promises. Altman responded that he respects Musk’s accomplishments and thinks he is “the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time.” When Musk said SoftBank has secured less than $10 billion, Altman said that claim was “wrong, as you surely know.”
“This is great for the country,” Altman replied. “I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put (America) first.”
Musk continued to blast Altman by sharing his old tweets opposing Trump. Altman in turn said, “Watching (Trump) more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him,” adding “I’m not going to agree with him on everything, but I think he will be incredible for the country in many ways!”
Musk Offers to Buy OpenAI
In February 2025, Musk orchestrated an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to take over OpenAI. Upon hearing the news, Altman took to X to write “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want” — implying the social media platform is worth a fraction of the $44 billion Musk paid to acquire it back in 2022. Musk replied by calling Altman a “swindler.”
OpenAI’s board of directors eventually issued a more formal rejection of Musk’s offer, saying the company is not for sale. When Bloomberg News asked about Musk’s proposition, Altman said Musk is operating from a place of insecurity and isn’t “a happy person.”
Musk put together the hefty offer with the help of several investors. One of the potential investors he approached was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to a court filing in Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI. OpenAI has since subpoenaed Meta for any communications between Musk and Zuckerberg about the hostile takeover bid.
xAI Sues Apple and OpenAI
In August 2025, xAI sued Apple and OpenAI, claiming Apple manipulated its App Store rankings to favor OpenAI’s ChatGPT app. Apple had partnered with OpenAI back in 2024 to integrate ChatGPT into its operating systems. In its lawsuit, xAI said this partnership would give OpenAI access to troves of valuable user data that would solidify OpenAI’s lead in the AI race.
Since releasing the Grok 4 model in July 2025, Musk had been tracking his chatbot’s standing in the App Store. Roughly two weeks before the lawsuit was filed, Musk posted, “Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.”
While only indirectly mentioned, Altman quote-tweeted Musk, saying “this is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like.” He then linked to an article claiming Musk had X engineers tweak the platform’s algorithm to boost his social media reach.
Musk took issue with Altman’s allegation, saying, “You got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I’ve received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!” Altman then challenged Musk to sign an affidavit swearing he has never ordered algorithm changes to hurt his competitors or help his own companies — to which Musk has not responded.
Altman Supports Musk’s Competitors
As the former CEO of Y Combinator, Altman made his fortune by investing in tech startups. He’s also supported several businesses that directly compete with Musk’s companies, most notably SpaceX and Neuralink.
In 2025, Financial Times reported that Altman is co-founding Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface developer that would rival Neuralink — a company Altman invested in as recently as 2021. Altman would not be involved in the day-to-day operations of Merge. OpenAI’s venture capital arm also plans to contribute to the startup’s upcoming $250 million funding round, according to FT.
Altman has also been investing in SpaceX rival Longshot Space since its $1.5 million pre-seed round in 2022. Longshot, which is developing pneumatic-powered space cannons to shoot objects into space without rocket fuel, believes its technology can slash costs compared to reusable rockets — a market dominated by SpaceX right now.
OpenAI has even started to experiment in the world of autonomous vehicles, a technology that Tesla has been working on for more than a decade. Tesla introduced robotaxis as a pilot project in June 2025, and Musk has claimed that unsupervised full self-driving Teslas will be available in 2026. OpenAI, meanwhile, has partnered with Applied Intuition, a “vehicle intelligence” company that develops software for autonomous vehicles. On his brother’s podcast, Altman said OpenAI has new technology that can perform “self-driving for standard cars way better than any current approach.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Elon Musk suing OpenAI?
Musk sued OpenAI in 2024, alleging the company breached its original agreement to form a nonprofit company that releases open-source AI models. He also alleged that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman manipulated him into donating millions under false pretenses and then built an “opaque web” of profit-driven affiliates. Musk later expanded the include antitrust claims, saying OpenAI and Microsoft discouraged investors from backing rival AI startups.
Then, in August 2025, Musk’s AI company xAI filed a separate lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, claiming Apple manipulated its App Store rankings to favor OpenAI’s ChatGPT app.
Why is Elon Musk suing Apple?
In August 2025, Musk’s AI company xAI sued Apple and OpenAI for antitrust violations, claiming Apple manipulated its App Store rankings to favor OpenAI’s ChatGPT app. Apple had partnered with OpenAI in 2024 to integrate ChatGPT into its operating systems, and xAI alleged this arrangement gave OpenAI an unfair advantage.
