Sam Altman-Elon Musk Feud Timeline: Altman Says Musk Isn’t A ‘Happy Person’ After ‘Crazy’ OpenAI Offer – Forbes
The dispute between arguably the two biggest names in generative artificial intelligence—billionaires Sam Altman and Elon Musk—received a new wrinkle Monday as Musk made a nearly $100 billion offer to buy the non-profit entity controlling Altman’s OpenAI, though the feud quickly devolved again into name-calling as the billionaire beef bleeds into boardrooms, courts and the Oval Office.Elon Musk, left, and Sam Altman appear together in 2015.February 10, 2025In an interview with Bloomberg, Altman says OpenAI is “not for sale” and the bid is the latest of “tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff, now this” for the “competitor” Musk to “slow us down.”Altman then gets personal, saying he doesn’t believe Musk is a “happy person” and Musk’s “whole life is from a position of insecurity — I feel for the guy.”February 10, 2025Musk leads a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid for OpenAI’s nonprofit arm submitted to the entity Monday, a deal which if accepted could lead to Musk’s xAI merger with OpenAI if the bid is accepted, according to the Journal; Musk told the Journal he hopes “for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”Altman mocked the offer: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” he posted to Musk’s X social media site formerly known as Twitter, referring to the company’s diminished valuation from the $44 billion price tag Musk paid in 2022.Musk clapped back by calling the OpenAI chief “Scam Altman” and a “swindler.”January 24, 2025Musk reposts on X a summary of a Financial Times report on Stargate, the $500 billion tech initiative involving OpenAI that Musk’s ally President Donald Trump announced last month: The anonymously sourced Financial Times report said the project has yet to secure the required financing, including an unattributed quote that they “haven’t figured out the structure, they haven’t figured out the financing, they don’t have the money committed,” leading Musk to reply approvingly to a commenter who claimed Stargate “is already falling apart before it even starts.”January 23, 2025Trump brings the feud between Altman and his close ally Musk to a national stage, telling reporters “Elon doesn’t like one of those people” involved in Stargate, apparently referring to Altman, who wrote earlier Thursday on X, “just one more mean tweet and then maybe you’ll love yourself…,” making what seemed a pointed dig at Musk in response to his flurry of negative tweets about Stargate and Altman.January 22, 2025Musk questioned whether the “fake” Stargate had secured the announced funding and tore into Altman on X, referring to him as a “swindler” and a “liar,” also resharing Altman’s 2021 post celebrating Trump’s 2020 election loss–Altman fired back he doesn’t think Musk is a “nice person” and Musk’s criticism stems from his involvement with OpenAI rival, writing “what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies.”January 21, 2025Altman appeared alongside Trump announcing the $500 billion Stargate joint venture aimed at building out the physical data centers needed to power OpenAI’s artificial general intelligence ambitions, with Trump notably lauding Altman as “by far the leading expert” in generative AI, and Altman praising Trump, saying the project wouldn’t have been possible “without you.”March 1, 2024Musk initially sued OpenAI for allegedly becoming a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of its investor Microsoft, following up in November with a preliminary injunction to stop the “market-paralyzing gorgon” OpenAI from becoming a for-profit entity, while later calling Altman “someone who is not trustworthy” in an October interview with Tucker Carlson.July 12, 2023Musk announces his own generative AI startup, xAI, creating the generative AI chatbot Grok that he described as an anti “woke” response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT program, which was released to the public Nov. 30, 2022 to significant fanfare.2018Musk leaves OpenAI’s board of directors in a decision the organization described at the time as the elimination of “a potential future conflict for Elon…as Tesla continues to become more focused on AI,” referring to the electric vehicle company’s push into autonomous driving, though OpenAI’s later recounting of the circumstances painted a more contentious picture, saying Musk left OpenAI after the company rebuked his attempts to have more than 50% equity and the chief executive role at a for-profit OpenAI, or to merge OpenAI into Tesla.2015Altman and Musk are among 11 cofounders of OpenAI, serving as co-chairs of the non-profit research organization with the mission to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return,” according to its introductory blog post, which noted Altman, Musk, and billionaire venture capitalists Reid Hoffman (famously a Democratic megadonor) and Peter Thiel (famously a GOP megadonor) were among those who infused OpenAI with $1 billion at its founded.Musk and Altman’s public quarrel is front and center of the messy AI arms race between OpenAI and xAI, with other competitors including Alphabet parent Google, Facebook parent Meta and the Amazon-backed startup Anthropic. Microsoft is OpenAI’s most notable investor, injecting about $14 billion in the ChatGPT parent over the last five years, with the world’s largest company, leading AI tech architect Nvidia, investing in OpenAI’s most recent funding round which valued the company at $157 billion. That is larger than the $60 billion and $50 billion respective valuations of the also private Anthropic and xAI. Stargate is a joint venture between OpenAI, cloud computing giant Oracle and foreign investment groups MGX and SoftBank which secured a $100 billion initial commitment and $500 billion over the next four years to build AI infrastructure, including data centers, in the U.S., Trump and the companies announced this week.Musk is easily the richest person on the planet with an estimated net worth of $392 billion. Less than $50 billion of that comes from his 54% stake in xAI, while his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, both of which he also leads as CEO, account for a majority of his wealth. Altman is the 2,543rd-richest person with a $1.2 billion fortune thanks mostly to early investments in companies like social media company Reddit and financial technology company Stripe. Altman does not have equity in OpenAI, so Forbes’ estimates of Altman’s fortune do not account for OpenAI, though Bloomberg reports OpenAI has discussed granting Altman a 7% equity stake in the company, a stake which would be worth $11 billion at OpenAI’s most recent $157 billion valuation.Editor’s Note: An earlier headline on this story incorrectly stated the value of Musk’s offer, which is $97.4 billion.One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. 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