Featured Image Credit: JOEL SAGET / Contributor / Getty
Sam Altman has humbled long time rival Elon Musk in a recent interview following reports that the latter has led a $97,000,000,000 bid to purchase OpenAI, and many consider Altman's assessments to be brutally honest.
The feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman stretches nearly a decade, and continues to spark flames arguably more than ever due to their close proximity at the top of the AI food chain.
Beginning initially as friends and co-founders of OpenAI with the mission to better humanity instead of a desire for profits, the pair shortly fell out a few years later after Musk reportedly attempted to wrestle control of the company and push towards a for-profit model.
In the years following Musk have levied several lawsuits against OpenAI and its CEO Altman, including accusations of profiteering and engaging in monopolization practices.
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Things have especially come to a head after Musk led a consortium bid to purchase OpenAI, with a figure of $97 billion floating around which Altman firmly rejected, adding his own counter offer for X at a tenth of the price.
"Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity"
— Bloomberg (@business) February 11, 2025
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is "not for sale" and Elon Musk is probably trying to delay its progress with an unsolicited bid for the AI firm https://t.co/CtKdqnQgws pic.twitter.com/N702QJP8JW
Altman has continued to push back in the war though, offering honest and humbling assessments of Musk in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
In reference to the seriousness of Musk's attempts to purchase OpenAI, Altman argued: "I think he's probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor. He's working hard and he's raised a lot of money for xAI, and they're trying to compete with us from a technological perspective.
"From, you know, getting the product into the market, and I wish he would just compete by building a better product."
Unfortunately for Musk, that was just the beginning of Altman's savage takedown, and the worst was still yet to come. When asked about whether Musk's approach signaled a feeling of insecurity about xAI, Altman assessed:
"Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy, I do, actually. I don't think he's like a happy person. I do feel for him."
Ouch.
Capping it all off, Altman outlines that he's "not particularly" worried about Musk's prominent position in government when it comes to the disruptive power he might hold. "Maybe I should be," he wonders, but settles on not letting it bother him.
"I mean, I just try to wake up and think about how we're going to make our technology better," declares Altman, which feels very much like a 'I don't think about you at all' moment when placed next to Musk.
This isn't the first time that Altman has expressed similar feelings in reference to competition, as he recently used the meteoric rise of Chinese ChatGPT rival DeepSeek as a means to push OpenAI further, illustrating that "it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor" that drives innovation.
Altman would argue that he's simply living his childhood dream, supported by his miniscule monetary ties to OpenAI, indicating that he's truly in it for the love of the game.
