Sam Altman dismisses Elon Musk’s warning that OpenAI GPT-5 will “eat Microsoft alive”: ‘I don’t think about him that much’

The feud between Sam Altman and Elon Musk just got another chapter—and this time, it’s over GPT-5 and Microsoft.

After Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Thursday that OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-5, will be rolled out across Microsoft products—including Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI Foundry—Musk didn’t hold back. He posted on X, “OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive.”

The warning caught attention, but Nadella didn’t seem fazed. “People have been trying for 50 years, and that’s the fun of it! Each day you learn something new, and innovate, partner, and compete,” he replied on X. He even gave a nod to Musk’s own Grok 4 chatbot, which is also hosted on Azure in limited preview.

People have been trying for 50 years and that’s the fun of it! Each day you learn something new, and innovate, partner, and compete. Excited for Grok 4 on Azure and looking forward to Grok 5!

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) August 7, 2025

Altman, for his part, wasn’t interested in playing along. Asked about Musk’s post during an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, the OpenAI CEO responded, “You know, I don’t think about him that much.”

Altman went further, questioning what Musk even meant by the comment. “I thought he was just, like, tweeting all day [on X] about how much OpenAI sucks, and our model is bad, and, you know, [we’re] not gonna be a good company and all that,” he added.

Musk has yet to respond, and CNBC says it reached out to his company X for comment.

Altman and Musk have taken shots at each other for years. They co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit focused on safe artificial general intelligence, but split over disagreements about the lab’s direction. Since then, OpenAI has restructured into a for-profit hybrid, launched the viral ChatGPT, and brought Microsoft on board as a major backer.

Musk hasn’t been quiet about his disapproval. He previously sued OpenAI for allegedly abandoning its original mission, though he later dropped the lawsuit. Earlier this year, he even led a $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit that governs OpenAI. Altman turned it down and fired back with a jab of his own: “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” he posted.

At the time, Altman told CNBC he saw the offer as a move to slow down a competitor.

With GPT-5 now deeply integrated into Microsoft’s ecosystem, Altman seems focused on moving forward—Musk’s commentary or not.

Sour Grapes? Musk Can’t Seem to Let OpenAI Go

OpenAI was co-founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in late 2015, with a mission to build safe artificial general intelligence that benefits all of humanity. The company, originally set up as a nonprofit, aimed to “freely collaborate” with other institutions and researchers, promising to make its work open and accessible to the public.

Both Musk and Altman were driven in part by concerns over the existential risks posed by advanced AI. Nearly a decade later, that shared mission has splintered—OpenAI has evolved into a for-profit powerhouse backed by Microsoft, while Musk continues to take shots from the outside.