'Swindler, Scam Altman': Musk hits back after OpenAI buyout rejection

A consortium of investors, led by Elon Musk, had made an unsolicited bid of $97.4 billion to purchase the non-profit overseeing OpenAI

Yet again, Elon Musk has stirred a row with his post on X. In his latest post, Musk called OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a "swindler". Musk's comment came after Altman rejected the former's offer to buy OpenAI.

 

A consortium of investors, led by Musk, had made an unsolicited bid of $97.4 billion to purchase the non-profit overseeing OpenAI. The Tesla chief framed the offer as an effort to restore the organisation to its original mission of being an "open-source, safety-focused force for good".   

 

Altman, however, dismissed the proposal with a pointed jab at Musk’s social media venture. "No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want," he quipped, referencing Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion and its subsequent drop in valuation.   

 

Musk fired back in the comments, simply writing "Swindler", before posting a video of Altman with the caption "Scam Altman".  

 

Altman-Musk: A long-running AI rivalry  

 

The friction between Musk and Altman stems from their diverging approaches to artificial intelligence. Once a co-founder of OpenAI, Musk has since become a vocal critic, accusing Altman of prioritising commercial gains over AI ethics. Their dispute escalated in 2023 when Musk launched xAI as a direct competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, followed by a lawsuit in 2024 over OpenAI’s ties to Microsoft.  

 

In 2025, their clash took on political dimensions with the launch of Stargate, a $500 billion AI initiative backed by former US President Donald Trump and Altman. While Trump praised Altman’s leadership, Musk dismissed the project as financially unsound and used X to attack Altman personally. In response, Altman questioned Musk’s intentions, further deepening an already heated and highly publicised AI rivalry.