OpenAI Is Suing Elon Musk

Tech bros, lawsuits, and a rejected $97 billion offer—welcome to Silicon Valley’s latest drama.

The gloves are off in the world of artificial intelligence, and this time it’s OpenAI taking a swing at Elon Musk. The ChatGPT creators have filed a countersuit, accusing Musk of deploying “bad-faith tactics” to sabotage their progress and snag control of cutting-edge AI for himself.

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“Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit,” the company declared on Wednesday. “Today, we countersued to stop him.”

To understand the feud, we have to rewind. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI back in 2015 alongside CEO Sam Altman, stepped away in 2018 after reportedly clashing with the team over its direction. Since then, OpenAI has gone from non-profit to “capped-profit”, sparking criticism from Musk, who claims the company has abandoned its original mission of building safe, open AI for the good of humanity.

In true Musk fashion, he didn’t just tweet about it—he sued. That case, still ongoing, now has a 2026 trial date, thanks to a US federal judge who declined Musk’s request to immediately freeze OpenAI’s new for-profit structure.

Image @sss__edit via IG

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Meanwhile, OpenAI’s latest legal strike paints Musk as less of a concerned co-founder and more of a saboteur with a side hustle. That side hustle? xAI, Musk’s rival AI firm, which recently merged with X (formerly Twitter) to form XAI Holdings—now valued at over $100 billion.

Oh, and Musk also tried to buy OpenAI back in February for a cool $97.4 billion. CEO Sam Altman’s response? A dry-as-space reply: “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Ouch.

Tech experts aren’t thrilled about the increasingly personal nature of the spat. “This is about control. This is about revenue,” said Carnegie Mellon professor Ari Lightman. “It’s basically about one person saying, ‘I want control of that start-up.’” He warned that actual progress on safe, equitable AI is being buried under a pile of power plays and posturing.

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Musk’s lawyer Marc Toberoff insists his client was serious about the bid: “Had OpenAI’s Board genuinely considered the bid… they would have seen just how serious it was.”

But OpenAI clearly isn’t buying it. As they put it on X: “Elon’s never been about the mission. He’s always been about his own agenda.”

In the world of AI, the bots may be neutral—but their creators? Not so much.