When Apple sued OpenAI on July 10 for allegedly stealing its hardware secrets, it handed Elon Musk a fresh reason to go after Sam Altman — and this time the two billionaires’ feud is playing out over companies that everyday investors can now actually own.
Musk, an OpenAI co-founder-turned-rival who runs the newly public SpaceX and its xAI unit, pounced almost immediately. He resurfaced a post branding Altman “Scam Altman” (1) and added that Altman takes scamming to a whole new level. In a separate jab tied to Apple’s complaint, Musk accused Altman of graduating from “stealing an open source AI charity” (2) to trying to steal all of Apple’s phone technology.
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Altman fired back at Musk directly, posting: (3)”homeboy you’re the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters” — a shot at the orbital data centers Musk has pitched as a fix for AI’s massive energy demands. He also worked in a boast about OpenAI’s latest model, writing that (4) “there are a lot of benchmarks that suggest 5.6 sol is the best model in the world right now, but the most reliable way to tell is that elon is obsessed with me again.”
Underneath the insults is a real fight over investor money.
Clash of IPO titans
Musk’s dig at Altman is aimed at a company racing toward its own IPO. OpenAI confirmed in June (5) that it had confidentially filed draft paperwork, and reports point to a listing that could value it above $1 trillion, though the company’s finance chief has signaled the timing may slip to late 2026 or 2027. Altman’s dig at Musk is aimed at a company investors can buy right now. SpaceX went public (6) on June 12 in the largest IPO in history, pricing at $135 a share and closing its first full trading day worth roughly $2 trillion.
Unlike most blockbuster offerings, SpaceX handed a big slice to regular people. It targeted about 30% (7) — against the 5% to 10% typical of major listings — and ended up allocating roughly 20% (8) to individual investors globally, distributed through retail brokerages including Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi and E*TRADE.
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When Altman mocks Musk’s “short-term space datacenters,” he’s mocking part of the growth story SpaceX is selling to shareholders. Not everyone is sold. Investment researcher CFRA opened coverage of the stock with a “sell” rating, citing what it called an extremely ambitious growth strategy and elevated valuation, and Morningstar’s math was harsher still, valuing the shares at a fraction of their debut price.
In May, a federal jury dismissed Musk’s own lawsuit (9) accusing Altman and OpenAI of abandoning the nonprofit mission the company was founded on, finding he had waited too long to sue. Musk said he would appeal.
For now the two men are trading insults on X. But they’re in control of massive companies landing in ordinary investors’ portfolios.
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X (1), (2), (3), (4); OpenAI (5); CNBC (6), (7); Bloomberg (8); NPR (9)
This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Elon Musk roasts OpenAI’s Apple lawsuit — but Altman hits back: ‘You’re the one selling investors on space datacenters’
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