Altman Versus Musk: How the Biggest Feud In Tech Landed in Court
The OpenAI CEO fell out with the world’s richest person years ago. Now Musk is trying to thwart Altman’s plans for the leading AI platform.
Photo illustration by 731. Photos: Getty Images (2)
At every point in the tech industry’s evolution, chief executives have found some reason to fall out. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs clashed during the early scramble to dominate personal computing. Jobs felt betrayed by Eric Schmidt when Google launched Android to compete with the iPhone. And Elon Musk famously challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match that never happened.
Even by those standards, the clash between Musk and Sam Altman stands out. The world’s richest person has used every tool at his disposal to undermine Altman’s leadership at OpenAI, the company they founded together more than a decade ago. Musk launched a rival artificial intelligence startup, mobilized his wealthy allies last year to make an unsolicited and unsuccessful $97 billion bid for the nonprofit that controls the ChatGPT maker, and is waging a legal battle to challenge OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company. Altman, meanwhile, has poked fun at Musk’s AI products and called him a bully.