Elon Musk calls Sam Altman a ‘scam artist’ as OpenAI courtroom war explodes

Elon Musk has intensified his long-running feud with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, publicly branding him a “scam artist” and accusing him of “looting” the artificial intelligence (AI) company’s original charitable mission as their high-stakes legal battle moves to federal court. 

Jury selection in the closely watched case began this week in Oakland, California.

Musk, a co-founder and early financial backer of OpenAI, alleges that the company abandoned the nonprofit principles on which it was launched in 2015. 

According to court filings, Musk claims he contributed nearly $38 million to help build an open-source research lab focused on developing safe artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.

However, Musk argues that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman shifted the organisation toward a closed-source, profit-driven model, securing billions in backing from Microsoft and transforming OpenAI into one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable AI firms.

In a series of fiery posts on X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend, Musk mocked Altman as “Scam Altman” and Brockman as “Stockman,” accusing the pair of betraying the company’s founding promise in pursuit of massive private wealth.

The lawsuit, first filed in 2024 and now narrowed ahead of trial, seeks to unwind OpenAI’s for-profit restructuring, remove Altman from leadership, and restore the company’s nonprofit status.

Altman and OpenAI have rejected the accusations, arguing that Musk voluntarily left the company in 2018 and is attempting to undermine a major rival as his own AI venture, xAI, expands.