# 'You Stole Apple's Phone Technology': Elon Musk Escalates War of Words With Sam Altman > Source: > Published: 2026-07-13 10:02:16+00:00 # 'You Stole Apple's Phone Technology': Elon Musk Escalates War of Words With Sam Altman ## A lawsuit against OpenAI set off the row, but SpaceX has just listed, OpenAI plans to, and both now want the public's money Elon Musk told Sam Altman 'you then stole all of Apple's phone technology' in a post on X at 6:24 a.m. on Sunday, 12 July 2026, the sharpest line yet in a weekend of open insults between the two most closely watched figures in artificial intelligence. The timing gives the row an edge beyond ego, because both men are now selling to the public: SpaceX shares began trading only weeks ago, and OpenAI has filed confidentially for a listing of its own. The fuse was lit on Friday 10 July, when [Apple sued OpenAI](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/spacex-secret-ai-phone-prototype-1806844), alleging that the ChatGPT developer used job interviews and departing staff to harvest hardware secrets for its planned consumer devices. More than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, a tally attributed to the complaint itself. OpenAI has not issued a public response to the claims. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and has fought Altman in court since walking away, joined in on Saturday. 'Scam Altman strikes again,' he posted, before adding that 'He takes scamming to a whole new level.' ## Retorts Before Sunrise Altman waited until the early hours, then turned the theft charge around. His answer, posted at 12:36 a.m. on Sunday and shown below, went after the pitch behind SpaceX's stock market debut. The jab lands where it is aimed. [SpaceX raised a record $75B (£56B) in its flotation](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/elon-musk-spacex-ai-anthropic-deal-1808029), and part of the sales case was computing in orbit: server farms launched on Starship rockets and rented to AI firms hungry for power. Altman's word 'short-term' mocks that timetable, and his company's confidential filing means ordinary investors could soon be asked to choose between the two visions. Musk's comeback arrived at dawn, mixing a prison taunt with the theft charge that now doubles as Apple's legal case. The full post sits below. The satellites he promises to start 'flying' next year are AI1 machines, unveiled by SpaceX as dedicated orbital compute stations carrying up to 150kW of processing, liquid radiators and fold-out solar arrays, to be built at the company's Gigasat plant in Texas. The parole line has no legal basis; Altman faces civil claims, not criminal charges. Musk's own $150B (£112B) suit, which accused Altman of seizing what began as an open-source charity, collapsed in May when a federal jury in Oakland found it had been filed too late. That verdict never tested the merits, and Musk is appealing. ## Rival Models, Rival Listings The mudslinging shadows a product war. In the same week, the xAI lab that sits under SpaceX shipped Grok 4.5 while OpenAI released GPT-5.6 Sol, and each founder spent days talking up his own machine. Altman folded the feud into the marketing, writing that 'the most reliable way to tell is that elon is obsessed with me again' alongside benchmark claims for the new model. He was gentler about the company suing him. 'i am not afraid of apple,' Altman posted, calling the iPhone maker an 's-tier company'. The head of product at X answered dryly that the trade secrets were incredible too. Strip out the insults and the stakes are plain. Anyone weighing SpaceX shares is pricing satellites that have never flown; anyone waiting for OpenAI's first gadget is now waiting on a courtroom as well. The feud is free to watch. What follows it will cost real money. © Copyright IBTimes 2025. All rights reserved.