Elon Musk and Sam Altman traded public insults on X over the weekend after Apple sued OpenAI alleging trade secret theft, reigniting a rivalry between the two artificial intelligence figures that dates back to OpenAI’s founding in 2015.
Reacting to a post about Apple’s lawsuit on Friday, Musk wrote, “Scam Altman strikes again,” a nickname he has used for the OpenAI chief executive repeatedly over the past year. Musk followed with a series of posts accusing Altman of “scamming” and, referencing Apple’s allegations directly, wrote that Altman had gone from “stealing an open source AI charity” to attempting to “steal all of Apple’s phone technology.”
Altman responded on X, criticizing Musk over SpaceX’s plans for space-based data centers, in a post that drew more than 11 million views. Musk replied that the launches remained on schedule and invited Altman to attend, adding a jab referencing Musk’s own pending appeal of an unrelated case. Altman separately suggested Musk’s renewed attention was tied to the competitive success of OpenAI’s newly released GPT-5.6 Sol model, which launched publicly last Thursday days after SpaceX’s own Grok 4.5 model.
The exchange followed Apple’s lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Northern California, alleging that OpenAI engaged in a coordinated scheme to steal Apple trade secrets. “At every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets,” Apple said in its filing. The suit names OpenAI, hardware partner io Products, and two former Apple employees now at OpenAI: Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan and engineer Chang Liu.
Apple’s complaint alleges Tan directed job candidates still employed at Apple to bring “actual parts” to interviews for “show and tell” sessions, and that Liu, after leaving Apple, discovered he retained access to the company’s internal cloud storage on a laptop he had not returned, subsequently downloading confidential hardware files. Apple said in the filing that OpenAI currently employs more than 400 former Apple workers.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company had “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and remains focused on building its own technology. Apple has not commented beyond its court filings.
The dispute adds to a strained history between Musk and Altman, who co-founded OpenAI together before Musk left its board in 2018. Musk sued Altman, OpenAI and co-founder Greg Brockman last year alleging the company had abandoned its nonprofit mission; a federal jury ruled in May that Musk had waited too long to bring the claims, a decision he has said he will appeal. A separate trade secret claim Musk brought against OpenAI over his own Grok technology was dismissed last month.
Apple’s lawsuit lands as OpenAI prepares for what is expected to be one of the largest public offerings in history, having confidentially filed for an IPO reportedly targeting a valuation above $1 trillion. The case remains in its early stages, with further filings expected in the coming weeks.
