Musk, Altman Rivalry Gets Personal On Internet

The rivalry between xAI founder Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is nothing new. In a latest feud between the two, they differed over Apple’s App Store rankings. Musk said that he felt the ranking was biased in favour of OpenAI. However, the allegation was denied by both OpenAI and Apple.

The spat did not end with the allegation levelled by Musk. It went beyond, Altman and Musk traded barbs over personal nature which caught the attention of the netizens. Musk called Sam a liar.

Musk alleged that Apple was making it impossible for any AI company but OpenAI to reach No 1 in the App store and called it an unequivocal antitrust violation. Musk even announced that xAI would take immediate legal action against the tech giant, claiming the rules unfairly favour OpenAI’s ChatGPT over his own AI chatbot, Grok.

Responding to  Musk’s allegation, Sam called Musk’s complaint a remarkable claim given what he had “heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like”.

Altman also posted a link to a Platformer report from over two years ago alleging Musk’s tweets were artificially boosted in user feeds and wrote: “Lots has been said about this But OpenAI will just stay focused on making great products.”

Sam Altman is right and his statements have evidence. Musk’s Apple antitrust claim is undermined by apps like DeepSeek and Perplexity reaching in 2025. Further, it is said that Musk has a history of directing X algorithm changes to boost his posts and favour his interests, according to 2023 reports.

At one moment, Musk even got nasty by bringing into the conversation Altman’s sister Ann. Musk wrote that Ann was abused by Sam. However, Sam strongly and categorically denied it.

The bickering didn’t stop there. Musk later shared a screenshot of ChatGPT selecting him as “more trustworthy” than Altman when given a binary choice. “There you have it,” he wrote. ChatGPT also praised Grok’s earlier fact-check post as “good bot”. Musk replied, “You too”, alongside the same more trustworthy screenshot.

Musk’s central complaint lies with Apple’s “Must-Have Apps” list and the “Top Free Apps” chart, where ChatGPT is featured prominently but Grok is not. Musk has accused Apple of “playing politics” by not promoting Grok or X.

The bitter animosity between Musk and Altman is based in their shared history. In 2015, they co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit dedicated to developing AI for the benefit of humanity. By 2018, the camaraderie had collapsed due to power struggle, after Musk’s failed proposal to merge OpenAI with Tesla. Altman stayed as CEO, overseeing the company’s transformation into the world’s most recognisable AI brand.

In 2024, Musk even filed a lawsuit against Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, and Microsoft, accusing them of betraying OpenAI’s founding mission and turning it into a closed source, maximum-profit venture.

Sam Altman responded to the allegation in May 2025 and announced that OpenAI would remain under the control of its non-profit parent organization, refusing a controversial restructuring plan. While the decision was viewed as a concession to Musk’s diatribe, the xAI founder’s lawyers dismissed it as lacking detail and confirmed the lawsuit, which would come up for trial in March 2026.