Musk Calls Altman 'Scam' Amid Apple Lawsuit & X Brawl

Two tech billionaires, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, engaged in a public dispute on X, formerly known as Twitter. This argument started after Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on July 10th. Apple accuses OpenAI of stealing trade secrets to develop its first consumer hardware device. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, shared a post calling Altman "Scam Altman" and added that Altman "takes scamming to a whole new level." Altman responded by referencing Musk's "short-term space datacenters." He also suggested Musk's renewed hostility shows OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol model is the best. Musk then accused Altman of stealing an open-source AI charity and all of Apple's phone technology. The "parole officer" comment from Musk refers to his own lawsuit against OpenAI, which he lost in May. Apple's lawsuit alleges OpenAI poached over 400 Apple employees and used job interviews to get hardware secrets. Apple claims a former VP encouraged staff to bring Apple hardware components to "show and tell" sessions. The space data centers Altman mocked are real; SpaceX unveiled its first AI compute satellite, AI1, earlier this year. This ongoing public spat highlights significant tensions within the tech industry.