When Billionaires Bicker: Musk vs. Altman in the Battle for Your Brain

Silicon Valley’s answer to WWE, but with more NDAs and fewer ethics

Some rivalries shape history: Hamilton vs. Burr. Ali vs. Frazier. Coke vs. Pepsi.
And then there’s this: Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman, two tech billionaires duking it out for the title of Most Trustworthy Mecha-Narcissist in AI.

This week’s episode of As the Ego Turns began when Musk threatened to sue Apple for supposedly rigging the App Store in favor of ChatGPT. According to Elon, Apple is “making it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to succeed.” Translation: Grok is still in fourth place and it’s someone else’s fault.

Altman responded by politely implying Musk is a hypocrite, citing allegations that Elon tweaks X’s algorithm to boost his own tweets and bury competitors. Sam even challenged Elon to sign an affidavit swearing he’s never meddled. Elon, surprisingly, did not leap at the chance to put his hand on a Bible and swear before God, lawyers, and shareholders.

Then the bots got involved and this is where it gets deliciously stupid.