Sam Altman just clapped back at Elon Musk over Apple’s trade-secret lawsuit

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded publicly after Elon Musk seized on Apple’s new trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI to renew his criticism of the company. Apple filed the complaint on July 10 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging OpenAI stole confidential hardware information through former Apple employees.

Musk, who lost his own separate lawsuit against OpenAI in May after a jury found he waited too long to sue over its for-profit restructuring, called Altman ‘Scam Altman’ on X and said he ‘takes scamming to a whole new level.’

Altman fired back at Musk’s SpaceX ambitions: ‘homeboy you’re the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters,’ a post that pulled over 10 million views. He later added, ‘There are a lot of benchmarks that suggest 5.6 Sol is the best model in the world right now, but the most reliable way to tell is that Elon is obsessed with me again.’

OpenAI has denied Apple’s allegations. Spokesperson Drew Pusateri said: ‘We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.’ The lawsuit names OpenAI’s chief hardware officer Tang Tan and engineer Chang Liu, alleging they used confidential Apple hardware information and files after leaving the company.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by Steve Jurvetson