The long-running and increasingly public feud between tech magnates Elon Musk and Sam Altman appeared nowhere near resolution on Sunday, as the two innovators once again clashed openly on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Their most recent confrontation centered around the origins and evolution of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research organization they once jointly founded. The latest flare-up was provoked when Musk, responding to a post from Altman, accused him in blunt terms of having ‘stolen a non-profit.’ This terse statement, delivered via social media on Saturday, came after Altman had shared a lighthearted post about attempting to cancel an order for a Tesla vehicle—a move that quickly escalated into a broader ideological showdown about ethics, governance, and the commercialization of AI research.
This exchange represents the latest chapter in a relationship that began as a collaboration of visionaries united by a common goal. Musk and Altman, alongside fellow cofounders Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman, established OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit organization devoted to advancing artificial intelligence for the greater public good. The original mission emphasized transparency, safety, and accessibility, positioning OpenAI as a counterbalance to large corporate technology players. However, over the years, philosophical disagreements and diverging ambitions fractured this alliance. Musk formally departed from OpenAI’s board of directors in 2018, citing potential conflicts of interest and differing strategic visions, and later launched his own AI-focused enterprise, xAI, in 2023. Meanwhile, Altman remained at the helm of OpenAI, guiding its evolution from a research collective into one of the most influential companies in the AI industry.
Altman’s response to Musk’s criticism on Sunday was as pointed as it was reflective of their differing worldviews. Writing on X, Altman asserted that he had helped to revive and expand what he described as “the thing you left for dead,” transforming the once-precarious nonprofit initiative into what he believes could become “the largest nonprofit ever.” He defended OpenAI’s current hybrid structure—a nonprofit controlling a for-profit subsidiary—as a pragmatic necessity to sustain innovation and attract the immense resources required for cutting-edge AI development. In a series of follow-up posts, Altman reminded Musk that he had previously suggested Tesla should take over OpenAI, eliminating any nonprofit element altogether, and that Musk had predicted the organization’s endeavors would fail entirely. Altman concluded his remarks with a conciliatory tone, rhetorically asking, “Can’t we all just move on?” as if appealing for an end to their increasingly personal feud.
The latest round of barbs adds to a pattern of public exchanges stretching back several years. The current dispute traces its immediate origins to the prior week, when Altman shared a screenshot of an email dated July 2018, confirming a $45,000 payment for a reservation of Tesla’s next-generation Roadster. Additional screenshots revealed that Altman had attempted to obtain a $50,000 refund, only for the message to bounce back. These seemingly trivial interactions provided the spark for a much more consequential debate about OpenAI’s founding principles and whether those ideals had been compromised over time. Representatives for both Musk and Altman reportedly declined to comment when contacted by Business Insider, leaving their social media posts as the primary forum for their contrasting positions.
Since its establishment, OpenAI has grown exponentially, achieving global recognition largely through the runaway success of its generative AI model, ChatGPT, launched publicly in 2022. ChatGPT’s rapid proliferation transformed OpenAI from an academic-style research lab into a dominant force shaping public discourse on artificial intelligence. Yet Musk, who has become one of the company’s most vocal critics since leaving its board, argues that the organization has strayed far from its founding ethos. In a 2023 post, he lamented that OpenAI—initially designed as an open-source, nonprofit entity intended to counterbalance the influence of companies such as Google—had evolved into a closed-source, profit-driven enterprise largely under the strategic influence of Microsoft. This transformation, Musk claimed, was entirely at odds with his original intent for the project.
Beyond public criticism, Musk has also taken formal legal action against OpenAI and Altman. His attorneys have alleged in court filings that Altman and Brockman misled him into supporting the organization’s creation by exploiting his anxieties about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. Musk’s legal team further petitioned the courts to intervene in OpenAI’s conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit enterprise, asserting that such a change violated the spirit of the company’s founding commitments.
OpenAI completed its structural transition in October, officially consolidating its dual nature under what it described as a unified mission. According to a company blog post, the nonprofit division—now operating as the OpenAI Foundation—retains oversight of the for-profit arm, presently valued at approximately $130 billion. This arrangement, the company argued, grants the Foundation extraordinary resources, positioning it among the most financially robust philanthropic entities in existence. The recapitalization also establishes a mechanism through which the Foundation’s ownership stake increases as the for-profit division attains new valuation milestones.
In its public communications, OpenAI reaffirmed that both branches of the organization—the OpenAI Foundation and its for-profit subsidiary, OpenAI Group PBC—remain aligned under a single overarching mission: to develop and deploy artificial intelligence in a manner that responsibly benefits humanity. The company emphasized that the two entities will work collaboratively to address the complex ethical challenges, societal risks, and unprecedented opportunities emerging from rapid advances in AI technology. Despite these assurances, the underlying philosophical tension between altruistic intent and commercial reality continues to animate much of the discourse surrounding OpenAI—and, inevitably, the personal tensions between its high-profile founders. As Musk and Altman’s antagonism plays out on the world stage, their dispute has become emblematic of a broader question confronting the tech industry at large: whether the pursuit of innovation can truly balance public good with private ambition.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-sam-altman-x-twitter-insults-openai-tesla-refund-2025-11
