The conflict between two of the most prominent figures in the world of artificial intelligence—Elon Musk and Sam Altman—has entered a new phase. Another public spat on the X platform erupted immediately after Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets. This episode is not just an emotional outburst but a symptom of a deep rift in the industry, where personal ambitions intertwine with multi-billion dollar interests.
Old feud with renewed intensity
As a reminder, Musk and Altman were co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, but their paths diverged as early as 2018. Elon left the board of directors, and his attempt to gain control of the lab failed. The legal proceedings initiated by Musk in May did not end in his favor: the court ruled that the lawsuit was filed too late to challenge OpenAI's transition to a commercial model.
The situation escalated to a breaking point after SpaceX held a record IPO, raising about $75 billion, while OpenAI, in turn, filed for its own listing. Competition between AI development companies has moved into a phase of open confrontation.
Personal attacks and model tests
Reacting to the news of Apple's lawsuit, Musk could not contain himself and published a series of sarcastic posts in which he openly called Altman a fraud, playing on his last name. Altman responded immediately, pointing out that the release of the GPT-5.6 model coincided with the launch of Grok 4.5 from xAI. According to him, the best indicator of OpenAI's superiority is that Musk "won't leave him alone again."
"There are quite a few tests now where 5.6 shows the best results among all models, but the most reliable sign of this is that Elon won't leave me alone again," noted Sam Altman.
X product head Nikita Bier also joined the discussion, ironically commenting on the situation with OpenAI's "trade secrets" amid the dispute with Apple.
Analyst's comment: This spat is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind it lies a struggle for dominance in the AI market, where the stakes are measured in trillions of dollars. The personal ambitions of the founders here are merely a catalyst for processes that will radically change the landscape of the entire technology industry in the coming years. Investors should closely monitor the development of these conflicts, as they directly affect asset values and company strategies.