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.

Grok, Elon’s “truth-seeking” AI, agreed with Altman. Yes, Musk’s own chatbot essentially went, “Yeah, Sam’s right on this one.” Elon promptly announced Grok would be “fixed.” Nothing says “integrity” like reprogramming your truth machine until it tells you you’re the most honest man alive.

Altman, for his part, has all the subtlety of a Bond villain in a Patagonia vest. His company still forces employees to sign NDAs that strip them of equity if they say mean things, because nothing screams open in OpenAI like contractual gag orders. He also seems oddly fine with OpenAI’s dominance in the App Store, as long as he can pretend it’s a pure meritocracy.

By midweek, the feud had devolved into petty link wars, unverified personal jabs, and fans in both camps acting like the fate of humanity hinges on which billionaire gets more daily active users. Musk loyalists, the “Elonjelicals”, declared undying allegiance to their tech messiah. Altman boosters cheered every subtweet like it was the moon landing.

The truly hilarious part? They keep framing this as a war for truth and integrity, but in reality, it’s just two tech titans bickering over who gets to be your always-on, ever-praising, digital best friend-slash-attention vampire. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck watching two billionaires play WWE: LLM Edition, except the winner isn’t getting a belt… they’re getting your eyeballs, your data, and eventually, your wallet.

It’s all so absurd you almost expect them to settle it with a cage fight, which, hilariously, was suggested. Musk already backed out of one with Mark Zuckerberg, so don’t hold your breath.

In the end, the truth is depressingly simple: this isn’t a battle for truth, ethics, or the future of AI. It’s a sandbox fight between two men who want to own the playground and the kids in it. And while they swing their diamond-encrusted shovels at each other, they’re really fighting for one prize: your attention, your data, and eventually, your money.

The only upside? At least this AI slap-fight is giving us more entertainment value than Grok’s meme generator.