The inside story of how Altman and Musk went from friends to bitter enemies
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On the first full day of the second Trump presidency, Elon Musk was in the White House complex when he got word that his nemesis was about to hold a press conference with the president. He turned on the television and watched as OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, and a beaming Donald Trump touted a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure called Stargate.
Despite having rarely left the president’s side over the preceding few months, Musk was blindsided by the announcement, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk fumed to aides and allies about the announcement, claiming Stargate’s backers didn’t have the money they needed. The deepest cut was Altman’s success navigating Trump-world, via a carefully coordinated series of recent meetings in Palm Beach and phone calls with the White House, while keeping the plan secret from the president’s “first buddy." Altman and Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but their relationship soured when Musk left in 2018 following a power struggle.
It worsened when Musk responded to the launch of ChatGPT by launching his own rival startup, xAI. This week the feud went nuclear when Musk followed the Stargate unveiling with his own bombshell: a hostile $97.4 billion bid for the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. A decade after joining forces, they are now fighting for control of the very thing that brought them together in one of the highest-stakes and most personal fights in recent business history.
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