Tech Titans Musk and Altman Clash in Latest AI Showdown
Tech titans Elon Musk and Sam Altman, once co-founders of OpenAI, have reignited their long-standing feud with a fresh round of public clashes. The latest dispute unfolded on X late Monday after Musk accused Apple of giving OpenAI’s ChatGPT unfair priority in the App Store rankings, calling it “an unequivocal antitrust violation” and threatening legal action through his AI venture, xAI.
Altman swiftly pushed back, referencing past allegations that Musk manipulated X’s algorithms to promote his own companies and harm rivals. Citing a 2023 Platformer report that claimed Musk created a system to prioritize his tweets, Altman suggested he hoped for “counter-discovery” to uncover the truth. Musk later shifted focus to post engagement, complaining that Altman’s reply had drawn more views despite Musk having 50 times the followers.
On Tuesday, Altman escalated the challenge, asking Musk to sign an affidavit swearing he had never altered X’s algorithm to disadvantage competitors or boost his own interests—promising to apologize if Musk could truthfully confirm it. He also quipped that Musk’s lower engagement could be a “skill issue,” or perhaps due to “bots.” Musk responded by calling Altman “Scam Altman” and accusing him of lying.
The spat comes days after Altman told CNBC he doesn’t think about Musk “that much,” even as the two continue to compete in the race for more advanced AI systems. Musk recently claimed his Grok 4 Heavy model surpassed GPT-5 in intelligence, while Altman emphasized OpenAI’s focus on building quality products. Their rivalry dates back to 2018, when Musk left OpenAI’s board, later becoming one of its fiercest critics and suing the company multiple times over its partnership with Microsoft.
