Elon Musk vs Sam Altman trade fresh barbs: What's behind their new feud?

The rivalry between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, has once again been reignited as the tech moguls traded fresh barbs in recent posts.

The public feud started when Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on July 11, accusing the company of stealing confidential hardware designs and manufacturing processes to manufacture their own devices.

In response to this alleged lawsuit, the CEO of SpaceX criticized Altman calling him a “scammer” who took this alleged crime to another new level. Musk also claimed on his X post that OpenAI CEO “had graduated from stealing an open source AI charity to trying to steal all of Apple’s phone technology.”

But, Sam Altman did not hold back. He also fired back at the 54-year-old, stating, “Homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters.” Altman took a swipe at the orbital data centres Musk has pitched as a fix for AI's energy demands.

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

In another post, Altman jabbed, “There 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.”

The public spat between Musk and Altman is not new. This long standing rivalry between them dated back to previous years when the former sued OpenAI’s Sam Altman and company president Greg Brockman. In the lawsuit, Musk accused them of defrauding early charitable contributions and turning the company into a profitable one.

In May 2026, a jury ruled in favour of Altman and OpenAI, determining that Musk’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations.