Sam Altman Dismisses Elon Musk’s Criticism as GPT-5 Powers Ahead

Sam Altman Fires Back at Elon Musk Over Constant OpenAI Criticism. GPT-5 Rolls Out Despite AI Rivalry

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has openly responded to Elon Musk’s ongoing criticism of the company and its latest artificial intelligence model, GPT-5. Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Altman said Musk spends “all day tweeting about how much OpenAI sucks, our model is bad, and we are not going to be a good company.”

This comes after Musk posted on X that “OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive.” His comment followed Microsoft’s announcement that GPT-5 will be built into tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI Foundry. Altman replied that he doesn’t “think about him that much,” showing little concern for Musk’s opinion.

Musk and Altman started OpenAI together in 2015 but split after disagreements on how the company should be run. Musk later founded his own AI company, xAI, and has become one of OpenAI’s loudest critics. He has launched rival artificial intelligence products, filed lawsuits, and even made an offer to buy control of OpenAI, which Altman rejected.

Altman said Musk is more focused on attacking OpenAI than building better products. He also hinted that Musk’s behavior might come from personal frustration, calling him “not a happy person,” though he added he still feels some sympathy for him.

GPT-5, which launched recently, is described by OpenAI as its most advanced model yet for coding, reasoning, and agent-based tasks. It comes in three versions - gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, and gpt-5-nano - to balance performance, speed, and cost. GPT-5 now powers ChatGPT’s top features and is also available in a simpler gpt-5-chat-latest version. For the first time, the top model is free for all users.

Altman called GPT-5 a “significant step” toward Artificial General Intelligence, saying it can answer questions like an expert in many fields. Microsoft’s quick rollout of GPT-5 across its products shows strong faith in OpenAI’s work.

Despite Musk having public remarks on this, Altman made it clear that OpenAI is now for developing and improving artificial intelligence models. The feud is no longer just personal-business but part of a bigger race to dominate the sector.

The launch of GPT-5 and its sudden rise among users have added an extra layer of drama to this already fiercely competitive war of the tech world between Altman and Musk.