The ongoing public feud between tech CEOs Elon Musk and Sam Altman flared up once more Tuesday, as both exchanged sharp accusations over alleged algorithmic manipulation on their platforms.
The conflict reignited Monday when Musk accused Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) of favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT over his own AI chatbot Grok on the App Store, branding it an “unequivocal antitrust violation” and threatening to take legal action. OpenAI CEO Altman fired back, accusing Musk of manipulating the algorithm on his X platform to benefit his own interests while undermining competitors.
The dispute escalated Tuesday after Altman’s post drew over 3 million views, prompting Musk to tweet, “You got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I’ve received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!” Altman responded with, “Skill issue… or bots,” poking fun at the prevalence of bots on X.
Altman then challenged Musk to sign an affidavit swearing he never ordered changes to X’s algorithm to harm rivals or advantage his companies, promising to apologize if Musk complied. This latest episode adds to their long-running, deteriorating relationship.
Their rivalry dates back to the founding of OpenAI in 2015 and grew more contentious after Musk left the board in 2018, criticizing the company’s commercialization direction and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) partnership. The conflict intensified with Musk’s launch of xAI and its Grok chatbot, as well as a 2024 lawsuit alleging fraud and betrayal against Altman.
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