Elon Musk was inside the White House complex when his phone started buzzing. Sam Altman was about to take the stage with Donald Trump. Confused, Musk turned on the TV. What he saw sent him into a rage. Altman stood beside Trump, smiling, as they announced a $500 billion AI initiative called Stargate. Musk had been practically glued to Trump in the months leading up to the second term. He had campaigned for him, spent hundreds of millions backing him, and positioned himself as Trump’s tech confidant. But somehow, his biggest enemy had beaten him to the punch. While Musk was focused on his political influence, Altman had been meeting Trump’s top advisors, locking in deals with SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and crafting a pitch that Trump couldn’t refuse. Musk’s reaction was immediate. He lashed out to aides, fuming that the Stargate investors didn’t actually have the money they promised. Then he went nuclear. Within days, Musk launched a hostile $97.4 billion bid to seize control of OpenAI. From co-founders to enemies In 2015, Musk and Altman were allies. They had dinner every Wednesday, obsessed over the dangers of AI, and feared a world where artificial intelligence would spiral out of human control. That paranoia led them to co-found OpenAI, a nonprofit designed to counter Google’s dominance in artificial intelligence. Musk pledged the bulk of a $1 billion investment and became the company’s most powerful force. But things changed in 2017. OpenAI realized that staying nonprofit wasn’t sustainable. They needed more money—a lot more. Musk had a solution: take full control and make himself CEO. Altman and OpenAI’s leadership resisted. Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever sided with Altman. They told Musk that giving him total control would create the exact kind of AI dictatorship they had sworn to prevent. Musk was furious. “This is the final straw,” he wrote in an email. Within months, he quit OpenAI. ChatGPT changes everything For years, OpenAI quietly pushed forward without Musk. Then, in November 2022, everything changed. OpenAI released ChatGPT, and AI went mainstream overnight. Millions of users swarmed the platform. Silicon Valley called it the most transformative consumer-tech product since the iPhone. Musk, watching from the outside, was livid. He had walked away, and now Altman was the face of AI. He attacked OpenAI, accusing them of moving too fast and ignoring safety. In early 2023, he signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on AI development. Then he launched xAI, his own AI company. The goal was simple: beat OpenAI at its own game. But while Altman’s AI empire kept expanding, Musk’s xAI struggled to keep up. By 2024, Musk was done watching from the sidelines. He went on the attack, suing OpenAI for allegedly betraying its original nonprofit mission. The lawsuit dragged on for months. Then Trump won re-election, and Altman saw an opening. Altman outplays Musk in Washington Altman had always been a Democrat, but he wasn’t about to let Musk be the only tech billionaire in Trump’s ear. So he started working his way in. Altman’s strategy was simple but brutal. He met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s transition team leader, and pitched an AI plan so massive that Trump couldn’t ignore it. That plan was Stargate: a $500 billion investment into U.S. AI infrastructure. Altman lined up SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and Oracle’s Larry Ellison as key backers. Four days before the inauguration, Ellison brokered a private call between Altman and Trump. Altman sold him on the vision—billions in U.S. data centers, thousands of jobs, a technological leap forward. Trump loved it. When Altman arrived for the inauguration, he made sure to avoid Musk. Instead of sitting with tech CEOs, he met privately with Trump’s allies, making sure Stargate was set. Then, the day after the inauguration, he stepped onto the White House stage with Trump and announced it to the world. Musk found out the same way the rest of the world did—by watching it on TV. Musk declares war Musk erupted. He called Stargate “fake” on X, telling his allies that the investors didn’t actually have the money. But he didn’t stop there. Within days, he launched a $97.4 billion hostile takeover bid for OpenAI. His message to investors? “Let’s go to war with Sam Altman.” Altman, who was in Paris for an AI summit, found out from The Wall Street Journal. He scrambled to respond. On Slack, he reportedly told OpenAI employees that Musk was just trying to derail the company. Then he hit Musk where it hurt. “No thank you,” Altman posted on X, “but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” It was a brutal response. Musk had overpaid $44 billion for Twitter in 2022—only to see its value collapse. Altman’s counteroffer was a direct slap in the face. Musk wasn’t done. He told investors he would withdraw his bid if OpenAI returned to being a nonprofit. OpenAI’s board didn’t even blink. On Friday, they officially rejected Musk’s offer. “OpenAI is not for sale,” board chairman Bret Taylor wrote in a letter. “Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition has failed.” Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, fired back: “No surprise. They’re scared.” Musk framed his takeover as a mission to save OpenAI from itself. “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” he said. Altman? He wasn’t buying it. “Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Altman said in an interview. “I feel for the guy. I don’t think he’s a happy person.” The war between Musk and Altman isn’t over. It’s just beginning.
