- By Alex David
- Sun, 02 Nov 2025 06:45 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Musk and Altman are no longer just two founders who disagreed on direction. They’re now two competing power centres in AI, and this week’s X spat shows the bitterness is still alive. Altman posted about waiting 7.5 years for a Tesla Roadster refund. Normal people see a delayed product story. Musk saw a chance to hit back at the guy who turned OpenAI into a for-profit giant. And the moment Altman posted screenshots, Musk fired the same accusation he’s been pushing for months: “you stole a nonprofit.” This is not small drama. These are two different visions of the AI future colliding in public.
What triggered this round
Altman shared screenshots showing:
- He paid $50,000 to reserve the Roadster in 2018
- He tried cancelling and requesting a refund
- His Tesla email bounced back
He even wrote that he genuinely loved the car idea, but seven and a half years is simply too long.
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Musk didn’t address the car
Musk immediately went back to his core narrative: Altman hijacked OpenAI.
He wrote, “You stole a nonprofit.”
Same line he’s been repeating in every medium possible — tweets, court filings, interviews.
Musk is fighting a structural battle
This isn’t random sniping.
Musk launched xAI as a direct competitor.
He’s also suing OpenAI and Apple, alleging they’re colluding to lock the AI market.
Altman hit back, saying it’s ironic coming from someone who is famous for using X to shape narratives that benefit his own companies.\
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Why this matters beyond the gossip
These are two competing models of AI:
Musk's vision | Altman's vision |
More open | More controlled |
Less regulated | Board governance + capital |
Sovereign compute | Corporate scale AGI |
The Roadster refund post was just the spark.
The fuel is the fight for who gets to define the future architecture of AI — open, closed, or something in between.
So yes, they’re still fighting.
And each of these public jabs is really about the same thing: power over the AI timeline.
