The almost decade-long feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman is heating up over Apple antitrust claims

Elon Musk and Sam Altman can’t seem to stop going at each other’s throats. This week, their years-long beef reached a new low when Musk accused Apple of rigging its App Store rankings to favor OpenAI’s ChatGPT over his own Grok app. Musk took to X, calling it straight-up antitrust manipulation and threatening to sue Apple. His complaint? ChatGPT sits at the top of app charts while Grok gets buried somewhere users will never find it.

Altman shot right back, essentially calling Musk a hypocrite. “Remarkable claim given what I’ve heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X,” he posted, daring Musk to sign a legal document promising he doesn’t mess with algorithms to help his own companies or silence critics. As expected, that set Musk off. He called Altman a “liar” and brought back his favorite insult: “Scam Altman.” Then he pointed out the obvious irony — Altman’s post got millions of views on X, which kind of kills the whole “Musk suppresses people” argument.

will you sign an affidavit that you have never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies?

i will apologize if so.

— Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025

Then things got weird. Both guys asked each other’s AI chatbots who was more trustworthy. ChatGPT backed Musk, praising his innovation record. Grok sided with Altman, arguing Musk’s Apple complaint doesn’t make sense since other AI apps like Perplexity have done fine in the App Store.

Meanwhile, Apple jumped in to defend itself, with a spokesperson telling Bloomberg that app rankings depend on downloads and user reviews, not company preferences. They flat-out denied Musk’s accusations. But Musk doubled down, posting screenshots showing ChatGPT appearing first when people search for “AI chat” while Grok gets pushed way down. He even complained about Facebook ads taking up too much screen space, calling the whole setup “ugly.”

How we got here

This fight didn’t start yesterday. Musk and Altman used to be friends — close ones, actually. Back in the early 2010s, Musk mentored the younger Altman, who was already making a name for himself in Silicon Valley startups. In 2015, they launched OpenAI together as a nonprofit. The goal was developing AI safely and openly, specifically to counter what they saw as reckless moves by Google. Musk put in millions of dollars and served as co-chair, constantly talking about how AI needed to help humanity, not just make money.

That partnership fell apart fast. Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 after butting heads over the company’s direction. He reportedly wanted more control and ties to Tesla’s self-driving car work, but the team wouldn’t go along with it. Altman stayed and eventually turned OpenAI into a hybrid nonprofit-for-profit company to fund research.

Musk felt betrayed. “OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it ‘Open’ AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft,” he wrote on X.

The bitterness turned into lawsuits. In March 2024, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, claiming they abandoned their nonprofit mission for greed. OpenAI fought back by releasing old emails showing Musk had actually supported the for-profit shift and even suggested merging OpenAI with Tesla. Musk dropped the lawsuit briefly in June 2024, then filed it again later that year. Altman dismissed the whole thing as Musk’s ego problem, telling reporters, “Elon’s whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy.”

Personal attacks get nastier

The insults have gotten more personal over time. Musk regularly calls Altman untrustworthy and has warned in interviews that giving someone like him control over powerful AI is dangerous. “I don’t think we want the most powerful AI in the world controlled by someone who’s not trustworthy,” he told Tucker Carlson.

Altman paints Musk as a bully who starts fights to stay relevant, especially as ChatGPT became a massive hit. In the first OpenAI podcast, Altman said, “I wish Elon would be less zero sum or negative sum,” accusing him of using government connections to hurt competitors.

Their rivalry reflects the bigger AI race happening right now. Musk started xAI in 2023 to build what he calls “maximum truth-seeking” AI, launching Grok as a supposedly funnier, edgier alternative to ChatGPT. Meanwhile, OpenAI partnered with Apple in 2024 to build ChatGPT into iOS. That deal boosted ChatGPT’s reach but really ticked off Musk, who threatened to ban Apple devices at his companies over “security risks.”

What’s the takeaway?

Don’t let former business partners control the future of artificial intelligence.

Seriously though, this whole mess shows how personal grudges can mess with technologies that affect billions of people. When the guys building our AI assistants spend their time calling each other liars on X, it raises questions about whether they should be making decisions about humanity’s digital future.

Musk and Altman both claim they want what’s best for humanity, but their behavior suggests they’re more interested in winning their decade-old argument. That’s concerning when you consider that their companies are building the AI systems that could eventually run our cars, manage our data, and influence how we think about everything.

The fight isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’ll probably get worse as AI becomes more valuable and these two dig deeper into their positions. Whether that’s good for the rest of us remains to be seen.