Elon Musk and Sam Altman traded public accusations of fraud on social media beginning July 12-13, 2026, after Apple’s trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI became public. Musk called Altman ‘Scam Altman’ and accused him of taking ‘scamming to a whole new level,’ while Altman responded with a jab about Musk’s SpaceX space-data-center claims and touted benchmark results for OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 Sol model. The renewed clash follows years of rivalry dating to Musk’s 2018 departure from OpenAI and his unsuccessful 2026 lawsuit attempting to reassert control over the company.
