The Wall Street Journal Exposes: Musk and Sam Altman Brothers Turned Enemies Insider

Authors: Keach Hagey, Berber Jin, Dana Mattioli, Josh Dawsey

On the first day of Donald Trump's second term as President of the United States, Elon Musk learned in the White House that his archenemy was about to hold a press conference with the president. He turned on the TV and saw Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and a smiling Trump promoting a $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure investment plan called 'Stargate'.

According to sources, despite being close to Trump for almost a few months, Musk was caught off guard by this news.

Elon Musk expressed anger to his assistants and allies after hearing about the White House's plan, stating that supporters of the Gateway were not prepared with the necessary funding. What infuriated Musk the most was that Altman successfully navigated Trump's world through a series of carefully arranged meetings in Palm Beach and communications with the White House, leaving himself, as the "First Brother," completely unaware of the plan.

Altman and Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left OpenAI in 2018 after a power struggle, leading to a falling out between the two. Musk launched his own startup xAI to compete with OpenAI after the release of ChatGPT, further deteriorating the relationship between the two parties.

Last week, the battle reached a fever pitch, and Musk threw his own bombshell after announcing the Interstellar Gate program: a hostile takeover of the assets of the non-profit organization controlling OpenAI, with a bid of $97.4 billion. A decade after joining forces, they are now vying for control of the company that once brought them together, making it one of the most remarkable and personally contentious struggles in recent commercial history. Its outcome could affect all aspects, from the future of world-changing technology to who will help shape the national technology agenda for the new president.

This article is based on interviews with more than ten people who are familiar with the long-term relationship between Altman and Musk, as well as those who are knowledgeable about OpenAI and Musk's business and political decisions.

In many ways, 39-year-old Altman is very different from 53-year-old Musk.

Elon Musk was once subjected to beatings and insults when he was a child, while Alterman was the teacher's pet, his parents often told him that he could be anyone he wanted to be. Musk is usually difficult to get along with, while Alterman tends to say what people want to hear. Musk is an engineer, immersed in the details of rocket and battery design, while Alterman is a technology enthusiast, who extensively reads philosophy, science, and literature, and writes papers on how society should be organized.

But the two had an astonishingly similar thirst for power.

For many years, the millennial Altman has always regarded Musk of Generation X as a hero, believing that he is the real-life Tony Stark(Tony Stark), providing a counterexample to Altman's criticism of the stagnation of American technology while serving as president of the startup accelerator Y Combinator. A few years ago, Altman met Musk through Y Combinator partner Geoff Ralson(Geoff Ralson), who also helped arrange Altman's visit to Musk's SpaceX rocket factory.

From 2014 to 2019, Altman's leadership at Y Combinator made him a central figure in Silicon Valley. He is known for his unparalleled network and the ability to help the startups he invests in, or punish investors who go against him. Altman's special talent lies in fundraising; he sits cross-legged in the meeting room, wearing his iconic jeans and sneakers, passionately sharing a grand, inspiring, and sincere vision that seems irresistible to investors to fund his projects.

Musk (left) and Altman rarely appear together at the 2015 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit (.

In early 2015, Musk and Altman began having dinner together every Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their conversations often had apocalyptic undertones: how the world would end, how they would prepare for it, and where they might have to escape to. They both agreed that one possible reason could be that AI becomes smarter than humans and perhaps uncontrollable.

In May of that year, Altman suggested they create a 'Manhattan Project' )Manhattan Project( to develop a general artificial intelligence )AGI( that is as smart as humans in most tasks. They hoped to ensure that the significance of this technology for humans would not ultimately be determined by Google, which is far ahead in developing this technology.

At the end of that year, Musk and Altman teamed up to create a new non-profit AI lab called OpenAI. The lab received funding of up to $1 billion, with Musk pledging to provide the majority of it. Musk and Altman will serve as co-chairmen.

Months before OpenAI was announced, Altman and Musk appeared together on the stage of Vanity Fair's )Vanity Fair( conference, both wearing ill-fitting suit jackets. Altman's sneakers, as always, caught the eye. They reached consensus on various topics, including 'nuking Mars' (with the aim of heating up Mars and creating an atmosphere).

In 2017, researchers at OpenAI realized that they needed much more funding than a non-profit organization could raise to develop advanced AI. As a result, the relationship between Altman and Musk began to deteriorate. According to internal emails submitted to the court, the management team agreed to explore some form of transition to a for-profit company. However, they could not agree on how to structure it. One email showed that Musk requested majority control and to be appointed CEO.

Altman successfully prevented his mentor, Musk, which marks the beginning of the rupture of their relationship. Altman persuaded another co-founder, Greg Brockman, to support him instead of Musk. Under Brockman's persuasion, OpenAI's chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, also supported Altman.

Brockman and Satskof wrote in an email to Musk that since the establishment of OpenAI was to 'avoid AGI dictatorship', therefore 'creating a structure where you could be dictator if you wanted seems like a bad idea'. Several hours later, Musk replied, 'This is the last straw'. In early 2018, Musk left OpenAI and Altman took over the leadership.

In the following years, OpenAI continued to focus silently on research. Then on November 30, 2022, the company released a new product called ChatGPT. Altman wrote on X: "This is an early demo showing possibilities (still with many limitations - it's largely a research version)."

The fact is that this research version has proven to be one of the most successful and revolutionary consumer technology products of this century, alongside the iPhone, Facebook, and TikTok. Like everyone else in the world, Musk is shocked that AI has become mainstream and is dissatisfied with not being involved. He began openly criticizing OpenAI for moving too fast and not taking security issues seriously. He signed an open letter calling for a six-month suspension of AI development.

In just a few months, Musk launched his for-profit open-source AI company xAI, but its technology and market impact are far behind OpenAI. Musk hopes to become a rival to Altman, but in fact, he is not even considered a trouble.

In 2024, Musk launched an attack on Altman through a new channel: the court. After suing OpenAI and its CEO in February of that year, Musk withdrew the lawsuit in June, refiled it in August, and then made amendments in November. His main accusation was that Altman allegedly violated their initial agreement, that OpenAI would prioritize the public interest over profit.

Elon Musk's lawyer declared: "This kind of treachery and deception is comparable to a Shakespearean drama." Altman stated that Musk feels pain because he left before the company achieved success.

With the escalation of Musk's legal attacks, Altman became increasingly vigilant, discovering that Musk's relationship with Donald Trump)Donald Trump( was becoming closer. Musk stood by Trump to assist in his election campaign, spending billions of dollars to provide support.

The CEO of this OpenAI is a lifelong Democrat who has said that Trump's principles represent an 'unacceptable threat' to the United States. Altman's company has almost no intersection with Trump and his circle of advisors, and the company is beginning to try to establish some connection.

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Last autumn, Musk spoke at a Trump presidential campaign rally.

It is a fact that Musk is a big obstacle. His hatred for this former disciple is well known in the Mar-a-Lago estate ), to the extent that people around Trump are quite cautious about conveying requests from Altman.

As a result, Altman tried to bypass Musk. Last December, he approved a technical cooperation between OpenAI and the defense startup Anduril, whose co-founder Palmer Luckey is one of the most famous Trump supporters in the tech industry. Musk expressed dissatisfaction with this deal to some colleagues.

Recently, Altman tried to connect OpenAI with a member of the Trump family. He lobbied for investment from 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm closely associated with the Republican Party, but was unsuccessful. 1789 Capital, led by financier Omeed Malik, had Donald Trump Jr. join the company in November last year. A spokesperson for 1789 Capital declined to comment.

Altman's advisor told him that to avoid unpleasant encounters with Musk at the Sea Lake Manor, he should arrange to meet Trump allies elsewhere in Palm Beach.

One of the meetings was with Howard Lutnick, co-chairman of the President's Transition Committee. Altman told him that OpenAI is committed to investing billions of dollars in American data centers.

Altman described this as a landmark move that Trump might take. The project, known internally at OpenAI as the gate, has been in the works for years.

Altman first mentioned the Stargate project to the OpenAI board in 2023, seeing it as a significant way to enhance the company's computing power for developing and operating AI.

He initially shared the idea with gate (Microsoft) and asked the company to invest more than $100 billion. However, after Altman was ousted as CEO in 2023, the tech giant hesitated.

Altman quickly found partners. One of them is the Japanese corporate group SoftBank (, whose outspoken CEO, Masayoshi Son ), is known for heavily investing in charismatic entrepreneurs. Altman's relationship with Son began when he ran the startup incubator Y Combinator.

The second is the chairman of Oracle, Larry Ellison, who has been a long-time friend of Musk. When xAI exited a Texas data center project that Oracle was working on, Ellison was left out. Altman agreed to let OpenAI take over the project. The project gradually evolved into the foundation of the Stargate.

On the second day of Trump's inauguration, Altman, along with SoftBank CEO Son and Oracle CTO Ellison, announced the Stargate project.

In addition to their strong financial and technical capabilities, Son and Ellison also brought Altman another advantage: both have had long-standing relationships with Trump.

In December last year, Sun Zhengyi played golf with the then president-elect at the Sea Lake Manor, and announced together with Trump and Lutenick that he planned to invest $100 billion in American infrastructure projects. Their press conference was actually a preview of the gate, but no details were disclosed - ensuring one thing: Musk was still in the dark about OpenAI's involvement.

Sun Zhengyi met with Ellison at his nearby estate.

Four days before the inauguration, Ellison helped facilitate a call between Altman and Trump to discuss the plan. As Altman outlined his grand plan to invest in AI infrastructure in the United States, Trump raised some questions about the construction process, drawing on his years of experience building hotels, casinos, and golf courses.

Altman attended the inauguration, but he did not sit with Musk and other CEOs of technology companies. He told others that he wanted to avoid any public encounters with Musk.

The next day, Altman and his partners came to the White House to give a more comprehensive explanation of their Stargate plan to Trump. Trump told them that he wanted to announce the news. Trump was pleased that they planned to invest $500 billion during his term, a figure that would certainly make headlines.

President Trump at the inauguration ceremony with Altman (center), boxing star Jake Paul (left), and wrestler Logan Paul.

Announcing this number is risky. The Gate needs external funding, and key investors have not yet finalized their specific commitment amounts. But Altman has achieved the goal of catching Musk off guard.

The head of the newly established Efficiency Department of the government is very angry. He complained to his assistants that these partners did not truly prepare funds for the project. He referred to the project as 'fake' on X, shocking some of Trump's allies with Musk's public falling out with the president.

Musk has been planning a counterattack and has been considering proposing to acquire control of OpenAI, a non-profit organization, since early January. In mid-January, his team has begun to contact potential co-investors, preparing for the proposed acquisition.

Musk said that part of the reason for this move is that OpenAI was in the process of transitioning to a for-profit company at the time. He believed that Altman underestimated the assets of this nonprofit organization, which will become an independent charity holding shares in the for-profit company.

But Musk conveyed a more fundamental message to investors: war with Altman.

While Altman was attending the Paris AI Summit, The Wall Street Journal reported on Musk's $97 billion acquisition proposal. He hurriedly responded, telling his employees in a Slack message that this was Musk's attempt to disrupt OpenAI's strategy once again.

Last week, Altman attended the AI summit in Paris with French President Macron.

He tweeted on X @ElonMusk: 'No, thank you, but if you want, we can buy Twitter for $97.4 billion.' This figure is far below the $44 billion Musk spent on acquiring Twitter in 2022.

Musk later stated that he would give up the acquisition if Altman kept OpenAI non-profit.

OpenAI stated in a letter to Musk's lawyer last Friday that the company and the board rejected a $97.4 billion acquisition proposal.

"OpenAI does not sell, the board unanimously rejected Musk's recent attempt to disrupt its competitors," said OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor. "Any potential restructuring of OpenAI will strengthen our non-profit nature, and OpenAI's mission to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity."

Elon Musk's lawyer, Marc Toberoff(Marc Toberoff), said that OpenAI's refusal is "not surprising".

Elon Musk has said that he wants to rein in the dangerous direction the company was heading, led by his co-founder. 'It's time to make OpenAI the positive force it was, open and safety first,' he said. 'We will ensure that this happens.'

Altman responded with his trademark good-guy snark: "Maybe his whole life has been in a state of insecurity," he said on Bloomberg TV. "I sympathize with him. I don't think he's a happy person. I do sympathize with him."

Brothers turn into enemies

December 2015

Altman and Musk are co-founders of OpenAI, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing AI for the benefit of humanity.

February 2018

After the contradiction and struggle over the company's development direction, Musk left OpenAI.

November 2022

OpenAI launches ChatGPT, this popular product brings AI into the mainstream market.

July 2023

Elon Musk announced the establishment of the startup company xAI to challenge OpenAI.

February 2024

Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Altman, accusing them of betraying the company's original mission.

January to February 2025

After Altman announced the 'Stargate' data center plan at the White House, Musk unexpectedly proposed to acquire the assets of OpenAI.