The AI burn book: Decoding the cat fights between Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Anthropic OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk are publicly feuding again after Apple sued OpenAI for alleged trade secret theft, with Musk calling Altman 'Scam Altman' and Altman mocking Musk's space data center plans. Altman also took jabs at rival Anthropic, whose CEO Dario Amodei was once his colleague. The online clashes highlight ongoing tensions among top AI leaders. As the summer temperatures rise, tech tempers flare. Sam Altman https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-fight-elon-musk-feuding-anthropic-2026-7 is back to his old ways: openly feuding with Elon Musk and taking jabs at Anthropic once again, to the shock of no one. With Altman and Musk's courtroom dispute wrapped up Musk lost https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-appeal-lawsuit-openai-verdict-2026-5 but vowed to appeal , the dueling AI leaders are now dragging each other online over data privacy and an Apple legal battle. The OpenAI CEO has also poked at Anthropic, his primary competitor, run by Dario Amodei https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-dario-amodei-does-not-trust-sam-altman-openai-2026-6 . Altman and Amodei were once colleagues; now, they avoid holding hands https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-leaders-india-summit-awkward-photo-hands-modi-altman-amodei-2026-2 . Altman hasn't called a rival CEO a "pusher" or a " grotsky little byotch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jc7IST4ABI " yet. Still, a Burn Book is forming under his fingertips β€” and we decoded it for you. Round One: Sam Altman vs Elon Musk Elon Musk threw the first punch last Friday. Apple sued OpenAI that day, alleging that the AI lab stole trade secrets https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-openai-trade-secret-claims-what-to-watch-2026-7 to build its upcoming hardware device. Musk replied to posts about the suit with exclamation points, the word "wow," and a quick reaction: "Sounds pretty bad." He ramped up on Saturday, calling the OpenAI CEO "Scam Altman," a favorite phrase of his. By β€œthis” he means scamming 🀣🀣 β€” Elon Musk @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/yQ5wryw1Ai July 11, 2026 The digs kept coming throughout the day. Altman took scamming "to a whole new level," Musk wrote, and might love scamming "more than any human alive " Altman responded in his typical, lower-case fashion: "homeboy you're the one sellling public market investors on short-term space datacenters." Note the term of endearment or lack thereof : "homeboy." Note the typo: "sellling." Note the lack of punctuation https://www.businessinsider.com/lowercase-typing-altman-dorsey-block-openai-gen-z-2026-4 . Three minutes later, Altman fired off another. This time, he used the feud as an opportunity to promote his product, writing that the most reliable benchmark for GPT-5.6 Sol's success https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-sol-terra-luna-gpt56-grok-elon-musk-sam-altman-2026-7 "is that elon is obsessed with me again." Again, no capitalization. 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 β€” Sam Altman @sama July 11, 2026 Musk responded to Altman's space data center skepticism a few hours later with a zinger. "We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves," Musk wrote. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-sam-altman-rivalry-apple-openai-lawsuit-2026-7 In the same post, Musk took another shot at Altman by referencing their messy breakup from almost a decade ago. "After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple's phone technology " he wrote. "Wow." For the record, Altman doesn't have a parole officer. OpenAI disputes Apple's allegations stating it is "not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit." OpenAI and SpaceX did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment. After Saturday's brawl, Altman wasn't done. He took one last stab at Musk on Tuesday, reposting some data privacy concerns https://x.com/SpaceXAI/status/2076692402442846289 about SpaceXAI. "Concerning," he wrote. Concerning. β€” Sam Altman @sama https://t.co/fLWXNGOshv July 14, 2026 And yet, the enemies could find some common ground. Both Musk and Altman posted approving messages about an AI safety essay https://www.businessinsider.com/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis-agi-safety-standards-body-gemini-2026-7 published Tuesday by Google DeepMind's CEO Demis Hassabis. Round Two: Sam Altman vs Anthropic Throughout the Musk mess, Altman continued to kick at his No. 1 opponent https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-dario-amodei-anthropic-openai-rivalry-timeline-2026-2 : Anthropic. Last Thursday, Anthropic released an eyebrow-raising ad https://x.com/claudeai/status/2075271759289303522 saying there was "hope in hard questions." Those questions include: what will humans do when AI takes over all the jobs? And why do we even have to have AI? The leading image is of a house on fire; it's an AI doomer's dream https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-openai-doomer-boomer-pivot-ai-jobs-2026-6 . Altman clowned the ad on Monday, saying that he "thought this was satire" posted from a fake account. He also put words in Anthropic's mouth: "Hard questions are great but only if we deem you worthy enough to not silently downgrade you, or even get access at all." He appeared to reference how Anthropic quietly rejected or altered some Fable 5 prompts https://www.businessinsider.com/researchers-furious-anthropic-mythos-fable-hidden-ai-limits-2026-6 in its initial launch. The company has since made these safeguards more visible. Earlier that day, he laughed at an X user who called the use of Anthropic's Fable 5 https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-voices-tech-react-anthropic-fable-mythos-5-return-dispute-2026-7 an unhealthy situationship. Since its release, Anthropic has rolled back and re-deployed the model and lifted and lowered guardrails, to the frustration of some users. In typical Altman fashion, he "lol'd." i lol'd β€” Sam Altman @sama July 13, 2026 Altman also got philosophical. He reposted a reply to a criticism of Amodei https://x.com/perrymetzger/status/2076652341948752030?s=20 that quoted C.S. Lewis. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive," the post read. that goes hard β€” Sam Altman @sama https://t.co/Gh2MADOR8p July 13, 2026 It's similar to criticisms https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-dario-amodei-criticizes-nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-comments-2025-8 other AI leaders have shared: that Anthropic warns of AI's safety concerns while claiming only its AI can fix it. And then, the vague-post of all vague-posts. "Come for the best model, stay because we don't treat you with contempt," Altman wrote on Monday, without specifying which AI rival he was taking a shot at. Amodei seems to be steering clear of the drama. As of Wednesday evening, he hadn't responded, nor has he updated his X account in over a month. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment.