Musk and Altman Sling Scam Accusations Following Apple Lawsuit

Last week, Apple sued OpenAI, accusing the artificial intelligence startup of stealing trade secrets.

Soon after, the lawsuit sparked a social media dustup between two other partners-turned rivals: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Responding to a post about the lawsuit on his social media platform X, Musk wrote “Scam Altman strikes again … .”

The posts were flagged in a report by CNBC, which noted that Musk has used the “Scam Altman” nickname on multiple occasions. He followed with “He takes scamming to a whole new level,” and then published a picture of Altman that included the words, “I’m doing this because I love it.”

“By ‘this’ he means scamming,” the 55-year-old trillionaire wrote. “He might literally love scamming more than any human alive!”

In response, Altman wrote to Musk: “[H]omeboy, you’re the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters.”

“We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves,” Musk shot back.

The CNBC report noted that Altman placed the exchange in the context of OpenAI’s latest AI model launch.

“[T]here 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,” Altman wrote on X.

Musk, who had helped launch OpenAI, sued the company and Altman in 2024, accusing it of straying from its nonprofit roots and becoming a “de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft, which has invested billions in the startup.

OpenAI rejected those allegations, arguing at trial that Musk had waited too long to bring the suit and contending the case was financially, and not philosophically, motivated. A jury in May found for OpenAI, concluding that Musk had delayed too long in making his case.

Now, OpenAI and two of its employees are facing new allegations from Apple, as covered here last week.

The suit alleges that OpenAI Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan had emailed himself information about Apple’s suppliers and asked Apple employees to bring parts with them when they interviewed for jobs at OpenAI.

In addition, Apple alleges that OpenAI technical staff member Chang Liu downloaded confidential files from Apple’s network and coached an Apple team member on how to copy confidential files.

“We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC. “We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

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