Elon Musk won’t use political power to hurt competitors, says Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he doesn’t expect Elon Musk to wield his political power to crush his rivals in artificial intelligence.

At The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Mr. Altman defended Mr. Musk, saying the Tesla CEO and X owner won’t go after his business opponents once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. 

“It would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon has it to hurt your competitors. I don’t think people would tolerate it,” Mr. Altman said. “I don’t think Elon would do it.”

Mr. Altman also said he admires Mr. Musk, even if his feelings have changed since he entered the artificial intelligence space.

“I grew up with Elon as a mega hero,” he said. “I thought what Elon was doing was absolutely incredible for the world, and I have different feelings about him now, but I’m glad he exists.”

Mr. Altman’s kind words for Mr. Musk come as the two are engaged in a legal battle concerning OpenAI’s corporate structure. Mr. Musk sued OpenAI this year, accusing the company of betraying its founding mission by shifting to a for-profit model. Mr. Musk argues that, by partnering with massive companies like Microsoft, OpenAI is engaging in anti-competitive behavior and pushing other companies out of the AI space. 

Mr. Musk runs his own AI company, xAI, which he has positioned as a direct competitor to OpenAI with its Grok chatbot and upcoming standalone app. Still, OpenAI is well ahead of xAI in valuation, snagging a $157 billion valuation this year after a lucrative funding round. 

Complicating matters is Mr. Musk’s political ambitions. The wealthiest man in the world threw his weight behind Mr. Trump during the 2024 race and is set to lead DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy for the new administration.