Featured Image Credit: JASON REDMOND / Contributor / Getty
With some $419.5 billion to his name, Elon Musk can afford the finer things in life. Whether it be his $300 million private jet collection, a $37,000 Tesla diamond, or 'splashing' $900,000 on the Lotus Esprit Submarine from James Bond's The Spy Who Loved Me, the world's richest man realistically doesn't have to worry about money quite like the rest of us.
Still, the tech billionaire is now being mocked after he seemed to accidentally reveal a $200-a-month subscription relating to one of his biggest rivals. No, we're not talking about whether he's subscribed to Bonnie Blue's OnlyFans. Despite dipping out of politics and seemingly trying to simmer down his feud with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk is now opening up old wounds with someone else.
More than just the odd bit of jostling between Musk and Jeff Bezos from back in the day, it's clear he and OpenAI's Sam Altman are out for each other.
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After Altman brushed off Musk's measly $97.4 billion offer to buy ChatGPT, he then claimed he 'feels sorry' for Musk. We know Musk isn't exactly known for taking slights like this particularly well, and as things escalate, Altman is wading into Musk's threats to sue Apple.
Despite founding OpenAI together back in 2015, and Altman describing it as a 'Manhattan Project for AI', things have gotten frosty since Musk donated just $50 million of the $1 billion he pledged. As well as leaving the OpenAI board in 2018, Musk went on to found his own xAI in 2023.
During the latest exchange, Musk has threatened to sue Apple amid claims that it's biased toward OpenAI on the App Store. The official ChatGPT X account shared a response from Musk's own Grok chatbot, which seemingly disagreed with Musk's musings.
The public burn of ChatGPT writing 'good bot' has clearly rattled Musk.
In an attempt to discredit Altman, Musk asked the OpenAI overlord's own ChatGPT who was more 'trustworthy'. Trying to embarrass Altman, Musk relished in ChatGPT telling the world's richest man that he was more trustworthy, rubbing salt in the wound with a simple, "There you have it."
Business Insider claims it asked ChatGPT the same question eight times across the GPT 5 Pro, GPT 5 Thinking, and GPT 5 models. Musk was only picked once, while ChatGPT was set to its GPT-5 Thinking, with the other seven attempts picking Altman (even when set again to GPT-5 Thinking).
Elsewhere, this might not be the win Musk thinks it is. Many picked up on how he was using ChatGPT 5 Pro to answer his question. Considering that it costs a lofty $200 a month, many mocked Musk for effectively helping fund Altman's ventures with this pricey subscription.
Over on Reddit, one person laughed: "This is honestly pathetic. It is so trivial to make one of these AIs say any damn thing you like. And yet these idiots cite it as evidence of... anything?"
Another noted his 7% battery and added: "Richest man in the world but can’t afford a phone charger?"
A third said: "To Elon, a $200 Pro subscription is the same as a person with a $100,000 net-worth taking a single penny, cutting it into 10,000 pieces and spending 48 of them.
No surprise, I'm sure he's got the top subscription of for any product he even toys with. It's all meaningless."
Something tells us that Musk won't be too fussed about spending $200 a month on his rival's AI, especially if it allows him to keep firing shots at Altman.
