Clash of titans: Who said what in the spat among Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Satya Nadella

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Image credit: AFP)

Investment in US President Donald Trump's $500 billion AI project announced earlier this week already has three tech titans snapping at each other's heels. Wednesday saw the beginning of a war of words between Tesla CEO and richest person in the world Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. By Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was also dragged into it.

It all began when Musk alleged that companies do not have the money promised to invest in the Stargate AI project. The initiative, which Trump described as “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential,” is supposed to be funded by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank and is set to kick off with an initial $100 billion private investment led by Masayoshi Son, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and Altman. The partnership is geared towards building data centers and computing infrastructure for the development of AI.

On January 22, when Open AI announced an investment of $100 billion into the project, Musk responded to their post on X and said that they don't actually have the money. "SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority," he wrote.

By then, he had Altman's attention. "Wrong, as you surely know," the OpenAI CEO told Musk. "Want to come visit the first site already under way? This is great for the country. I realise what is great for the country isn't always what's optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you'll mostly put US first."

He was referring to Musk's new position in the Trump government as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Subsequently, Musk wrote multiple posts against Open AI and shared a picture of a crack pipe and captioned it: “Leaked image of the research tool OpenAI used to come up with their $500 billion number for Stargate.” The post has since been deleted. But in another post, Musk called Altman a liar.

Altman literally testified to Congress that he wouldnt get OpenAI compensation and now he wants $10 billion! What a liar. https://t.co/YpHvcm0WZa Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2025

Meanwhile, when CNBC asked Nadella what he thought about Musk's comments,  the Microsoft CEO said, "Look, all I know is: I'm good for my $80 billion. I am going to spend $80 billion building out Azure. Customers can count on Microsoft with OpenAI models being there everywhere in the world serving OpenAI models and other models. That's I think, what I know."

Microsoft is a key investor in OpenAI and is listed as one of its key initial partners in the Stargate project.

Reacting to Nadella's interview, Musk said on Thursday, "On the other hand, Satya definitely does have the money."

Hours later, Nadella replied: "And all this money is not about hyping AI, but is about building useful things for the real world!"

Elon Musk and Sam Altman have shared a longstanding feud ever since Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015, split from the company. In March 2024, Musk sued the company over its plan to transition to a for-profit business model, then withdrew the suit in July only to sue the company again in August, alleging “deceit of Shakespearean proportions”.

Musk has, on separate occasions, called OpenAI "evil", his "wayward son" and reiterated that it can't be trusted.

"If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation," he announced last June.