'Homeboy, You're Obsessed With Me': Altman's Sharp Reply To Musk's 'Scam Altman' Jibe

Sam Altman did not hold back after Elon Musk revived his "Scam Altman" taunt on X, turning the attack back on Musk's own business dealings.

The fresh clash between the two tech leaders comes days after Apple sued OpenAI, accusing the AI company of stealing its trade secrets to build a hardware device.

How The Latest Round Started

Musk opened the exchange by calling Altman "Scam Altman" and writing, "Scam Altman is super good at scamming." He followed up with more posts, including, "He [Altman] might literally love scamming more than any human alive!" and a photo of Altman captioned, "I'm doing this because I love it," to which Musk added, "By 'this' he means scamming."

When a user on X wrote that Musk had "warned the world about Scam Altman," Musk replied, "He takes scamming to a whole new level."

Altman responded within hours, pointing to SpaceX's own ventures. "Homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters." The remark referred to SpaceX's reported plans to deploy data centres in space through its Starlink and Starship projects.

Musk shot back, "We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves. After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple's phone technology! Wow. What do you plan for an encore? That's tough to beat."

Altman took a separate dig at Musk while discussing OpenAI's latest AI model, writing, "There are a lot of benchmarks that suggest 5.6 Sol is the best model in the world right now, but the most reliable way to tell is that Elon is obsessed with me again."

The dispute traces back to Musk's departure from OpenAI, which he co-founded alongside Altman and Greg Brockman in 2015. Musk has since accused the company of abandoning its original nonprofit mission, a charge Altman has repeatedly rejected, previously calling Musk's claims "incoherent" and "frivolous."

Timeline: How The Feud Has Unfolded

2015: Musk, Altman and Brockman found OpenAI as a nonprofit for safe AI development, with Musk contributing roughly $44 million.

2018: Musk exits OpenAI's board over a conflict of interest with Tesla's AI work, and later launches rival firm xAI.

2024: Musk sues OpenAI, Altman and Brockman, alleging the company abandoned its nonprofit mission by turning for-profit.

April 2026: Musk escalates the dispute, calling Altman "Scam Altman" and Brockman "Stockman," and seeks roughly $150 billion in damages over OpenAI's restructuring.

May 2026: The case goes to trial. Musk testifies he felt "duped" and admits xAI's Grok trains partly on OpenAI's models.

May 18, 2026: A jury rules against Musk, ruling his claims fell outside the statute of limitations. Musk vows to appeal, repeating that Altman and Brockman had "enriched themselves by stealing a charity."

Present day: Musk revives the "scammer" attack, and Altman responds directly, redirecting the criticism toward Musk's own datacentre fundraising plans.

Both men continue to trade public barbs as Musk's appeal proceeds, with no sign of the rivalry cooling.