Elon Musk vs Sam Altman: fighting on X as they were in high school

The “technocracy” honeymoon phase is over. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are at the forefront of their first public fight in the Trump era, exchanging words on social media platform X. The conflict began when the Tesla owner and current head of the White House Department of Government Efficiency claimed that OpenAI lacks the financial resources needed for the Stargate Project, which was just announced by Donald Trump at a press conference.

“They really don’t have the money,” Musk noted in response to OpenAI’s announcement of the Stargate launch. He further elaborated in another post, stating, “SoftBank [the main investor in the Stargate Project] has secured well under 10 billion dollars. I know this from a reliable source.”

Musk continued to post and share a series of critical comments aimed at discrediting OpenAI and its CEO:

Musk’s stance was made even clearer when he responded to a post by Tesla shareholder Jason DeBolt, who claimed Altman was untrustworthy and that the Stargate project “can’t end well.” Musk replied with a cutting remark:

Altman strikes back

Faced with Musk’s accusations, Altman did not stay silent. He refuted Musk’s claims in a more neutral and diplomatic tone:

A rivalry rooted in OpenAI

The clash between these two entrepreneurs dates back to the early days of OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 as a non-profit organization with the mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. Among its founders were Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and other AI experts.

However, when there are too many leaders, conflicts are inevitable. Musk grew weary of Altman, left, and eventually started his own AI company, xAI, from which Grok emerged.

In March 2024, Musk sued OpenAI, claiming that the company had abandoned its original non-profit mission by transforming into a for-profit entity, prioritizing profits over public benefit. In November, Musk escalated his legal action by seeking a preliminary injunction to halt OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit model. His lawyers argued that this transformation could lead to anti-competitive behavior and that OpenAI, along with Microsoft, discouraged funding for competitors, violating the Sherman Act, which broadly prohibits contracts, combinations, or conspiracies that restrict the free market.

With the Stargate project announcement, tensions have resurfaced.

Can OpenAI fund Stargate?

The Stargate Project is an ambitious initiative backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, with an investment estimated at $550 billion. Its goal is to build advanced data centers in Texas to drive AI development worldwide, with the U.S. leading the charge.

The project’s funding primarily comes from joint investments by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Microsoft. Musk claims that neither OpenAI nor SoftBank have the liquidity necessary to support the initiative.

OpenAI closed the largest funding round in history, raising $6.6 billion last October. The main investor was Thrive Capital, contributing around $1.3billion, but Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity, and MGX also participated, and many will contribute both funds and development to Stargate.

Despite its capital-raising ability, OpenAI is not currently profitable, at least according to a recent post by Altman, who claimed that the company is losing money on pro subscriptions for ChatGPT.

We’ll have to wait to see what happens next.