Elon Musk vs Sam Altman: A $97.4 billion takeover bid, a $9.74 billion insult, and an AI war gone rogue

Sam Altman vs Elon Musk

“I don’t trust Sam Altman,” Elon Musk told Tucker Carlson during an interview. He also added that he does not want the most powerful AI to be controlled by someone who can’t be trusted. Maybe that’s why Musk now wants the company he once founded back. He offered to pay $97.4 billion for OpenAI, but Altman rejected his offer and even mocked him with a counteroffer of just $9.74 billion to buy Twitter. This didn’t sit well with Musk, who in turn called him a “swindler.”

Musk and Altman were once partners in building OpenAI, but now they are bitter rivals. Musk never lets go of an opportunity to criticise Altman and he too doesn't mince his words when it comes to Musk. The fight over the future of artificial intelligence is no longer behind closed doors—it’s playing out on social media, in boardrooms, and even in politics.

Musk’s offer to take back OpenAI was reported by The Wall Street Journal, but Altman had no interest in selling.Instead, he made fun of Musk’s financial loss on Twitter, which only made things worse. Altman in a tweet said, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want”. Now to recall, Musk had bought Twitter for around $ 44 billion. Altman lowered the price of Musk’s app by almost 10x by offering a $9.74 billion price.

This obviously enraged Musk and he couldn’t hold back his anger. Responding to Altman’s tweet, he wrote, “Swindler”. In another post, Musk shared a video of Altman and captioned it “Scam Altman”.

Musk targeted Donald Trump’s Stargate project due to Altman’s involvement in it

Musl was not too happy with his ally US President Donald Trump when he announced the Project Stargate.Altman also stood beside him to announce a $500 billion tech project. Musk, who was not part of the deal, immediately attacked it. He questioned whether the project even had real funding and reposted an article that suggested it was falling apart before it even began. To add fuel to the fire, Musk also brought up an old tweet where Altman had celebrated Trump’s 2020 loss—an obvious attempt to stir controversy.

Musk even came up with his own AI platform called GrokAI to take on ChatGPT. He even called it “anti-woke”. To put more context into his anti woke statement, Musk’s AI platform allows users to create images of famous people, something that ChatGPT. There is less censorship on Musk’s platform as compared to the ChatGPT.

Musk and Altman founded OpenAI in 2015. However, in 2018, he resigned from the board after failing to take full control of the company.OpenAI said his departure was to avoid conflicts with Tesla’s AI work, but Musk later claimed he was pushed out.

What started as a shared dream to advance AI for humanity has turned into a messy, public battle. Musk wants OpenAI to be more transparent. Altman wants to move forward without Musk’s interference. Their fight is about money, power, and control over the future of AI. And for now, the rest of the world is watching as two of the biggest names in tech throw punches—both literal and digital—at each other.