OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accuses Elon Musk of manipulating X to damage rivals

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has accused Elon Musk of manipulating the social media platform X to harm his competitors. 

This statement comes after a recent feud ignited by Musk's claims that Apple is skewing its App Store rankings to favor OpenAI.

 

The dispute began when Musk posted on X, alleging that Apple's App Store unfairly ensures OpenAI's applications always hold the top spot, calling it "an unequivocal antitrust violation." 

He further threatened legal action, stating that his company, xAI, would "take immediate legal action." 

This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like. https://t.co/HlgzO4c2iC

— Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025

In response, Sam Altman retweeted Musk's post and wrote, "This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like." 

This public exchange highlights the growing tensions between the two tech leaders.

What did social media say?

This war of words between Sam Altman and Elon Musk has prompted people to post varied reactions. While some chose their sides, others discussed the use of AI in general.

An individual expressed, “Who's going to tell Elon that GTP5 is 10X better than Grok?” Another commented, “This wouldn’t surprise me at all. Rock n roll, Elon!”

A third remarked, “Is it me? I feel like Grok always treats Android as 2nd class compared to Apple.” A fourth wrote, “Lol, how is this where we’ve arrived… all the people controlling our data suing each other over who gets more access to our data… for free.”

This is not the first time that Elon Musk and Sam Altman have publicly slammed each other. Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but eventually parted ways, has been in a constant feud with the company since launching his own AI company, xAI.