Elon Musk roasts Don Lemon less than he roasts Sam Altman these days, but the latest round of billionaire trash talk shows how personal insults have…
Elon Musk roasts Don Lemon less than he roasts Sam Altman these days, but the latest round of billionaire trash talk shows how personal insults have become a strange window into two of the biggest public offerings of the year. When Apple sued OpenAI on July 10 over allegations it stole hardware secrets, Musk seized the moment to reopen his running feud with Altman, and this time real money from everyday investors is riding on the outcome.
Musk, who cofounded OpenAI before splitting with Altman and now runs SpaceX along with its xAI unit, jumped on the Apple lawsuit almost instantly. He dug up an old post calling Altman "Scam Altman" and piled on, writing that Altman takes scamming to a new level entirely. In another post tied to the Apple complaint, Musk claimed Altman had gone from stealing an open source AI charity to trying to steal all of Apple's phone technology.
Altman Fires Back on X
Altman did not let the jabs sit. He responded directly on X, telling Musk that he is the one selling public market investors on short term space data centers, a pointed reference to the orbital data centers Musk has floated as a way to handle AI's enormous energy needs. Altman then pivoted to bragging rights, writing that plenty of benchmarks suggest his company's newest model, referred to as 5.6 sol, is the best in the world right now, and that the clearest sign of that is Musk being obsessed with him again.
The exchange reads like typical social media sparring, but the timing lines up with two enormous financial events. Both men are steering companies through, or toward, some of the largest stock offerings in history.
Two IPOs, Two Very Different Timelines
OpenAI confirmed in June that it had confidentially filed draft paperwork for a public listing. Reports suggest the eventual valuation could top $1 trillion, though OpenAI's finance chief has hinted the actual debut might not happen until late 2026 or 2027.
SpaceX, on the other hand, already went public. It listed on June 12 in what became the largest IPO in history, pricing shares at $135 and closing its first full day of trading worth roughly $2 trillion. That is a company investors can buy today, not a promise for some future year, and it is exactly what Altman was mocking when he brought up
