On February 10th of 2025, Sam Altman faced a dramatic development when Elon Musk presented an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to purchase OpenAI’s nonprofit division. The proposed agreement between xAI and OpenAI would potentially result in their merger if both parties accepted the deal. The OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rejected the offer from Elon Musk by calling it one of his “tactics” to slow down OpenAI. Musk received a harsh personal attack from Altman who declared that Musk does not seem like a “happy person” because his actions come from “insecurity.”
The conflict between the two companies has expanded through multiple years of intense competition. Musk publicly expressed doubts about Stargate on January 24, 2025, because it was a $500 billion AI project backed by Altman and endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Musk reinforced financial instability claims about the project, which intensified their ongoing business dispute. Trump admitted to the public that Musk displays negative feelings toward Altman.
The origins of their hostility began in 2018 after Musk attempted unsuccessfully to seize control of OpenAI before leaving its board. Musk took legal action against OpenAI in 2024 because he believed the organization had become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft. Musk established his independent AI company xAI in 2023 as a direct challenge against OpenAI’s flagship product, ChatGPT.
Since their joint foundation of OpenAI in 2015, Altman and Musk have developed into bitter adversaries who now engage in legal battles and online insults and political disputes. The growing AI competition between the two companies drives their ongoing conflict, which determines how generative AI will develop in the future.
