Sam Altman vs. Elon Musk: Net worths compared after the latter accuses OpenAI CEO of stealing a "non-profit"

Entrepreneurs Sam Altman and Elon Musk have been bumping their heads for quite some time now. However, the two recently caught in an online spat once again after the OpenAI CEO shared a post on X, formerly Twitter, alleging that the latter’s EV company did not cancel his order of a Tesla vehicle.

Sam Altman and Elon Musk both have a significance in the AI world. The 40-year-old, who was appointed CEO of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, in 2019, has a net worth of $2 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

On the other hand, the co-founder and CEO of Tesla reportedly has a net worth of $475 billion. The South African-born Canadian-American businessman is also currently recognised as the richest person in the world.

On October 31, 2025, the 40-year-old American entrepreneur and investor complained on the social media platform X about cancelling his reservation for a Tesla Roadster. He shared three screenshots of the order and wrote:

“A tale in three acts.”

While Sam Altman was sour about his Tesla not allegedly cancelling his order, Elon Musk accused him of stealing OpenAI, which was founded as a non-profit AI research organisation in 2015.

“You stole a non-profit,” Musk wrote.

Notably, the first screenshot in Sam’s post showed the order confirmation of Tesla via email. While the second image showed Altman asking for a cancellation of his order with a refund of $50,000, the third claimed that the original reservation email address yielded an "address not found" error.

Meanwhile, Sam also criticized the waiting time for the Tesla vehicle. As per his mail, he reserved the car back in July 2018 with a $45,000 payment.

“I really was excited for the car! And I understand delays. But 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait,” Sam Altman wrote in the comment section.

Elon Musk also responded to Sam’s complaint about Tesla’s refund, alleging that Altman “forgot to mention act 4”, where the issue was “fixed” with a refund “within 24 hours.”

---

Sam Altman's clash with Elon Musk over OpenAI explored

Open AI CEO Sam Altman Speaks At Annual Snowflake Summit In San Francisco (Image via Getty)

On November 3, 2025, Sam Altman defended his leadership at OpenAI. Responding to the SpaceX leader’s remarks about stealing the AI research organisation, the 40-year-old wrote:

“I helped turn the thing you left for dead into what should be the largest non-profit ever. You know as well as anyone a structure like what openai has now is required to make that happen.”

Sam Altman also accused Elon Musk that he too had no intention of operating OpenAI as a non-profit. He wrote in a follow-up tweet:

“You also wanted tesla to take openai over, no nonprofit at all and you said we had a 0% of success. Now you have a great AI company and so do we. Can't we all just move on?”

For the unversed, billionaire entrepreneurs Musk and Altman had reportedly contributed to the initial funding commitment of OpenAI with $1 billion when it was incorporated as a non-profit. However, in March 2019, it reportedly launched a for-profit subsidiary, OpenAI LP.

---

While OpenAI’s popularity has grown with the launch of ChatGPT, a generative chatbot powered by a large language model that became available in 2022, Elon Musk, on the other hand, had launched his own AI venture, xAI.

Edited by Afreen Shaikh