What began as a threat to sue Apple over alleged OpenAI favoritism quickly devolved into a juvenile social media back-and-forth between two of the world's most powerful AI execs.

These attacks allegedly culminated in Musk's seemingly fake OpenAI takeover attempt in 2025, which OpenAI claimed a Musk ally, Ron Baron, admitted on CNBC was "pitched to him" as not an attempt to actually buy OpenAI’s assets, "but instead to obtain 'discovery' and get 'behind the wall' at OpenAI."