Sam Altman says you have to accept a certain level of drama if you want him and Elon Musk to work together.
“I think every once in a while you have to punch a bully in the nose,” Altman told Vanity Fair in a lengthy interview. “And I also think that Elon, like many bullies, only respects people who do it.”
Altman and Musk had a famous argument that has since been recounted and is at the center of multiple legal battles. Their drama, far from the only problem in the AI world, is now also the backdrop to efforts by the world’s biggest AI companies to reach consensus on how to steer their technology.
OpenAI’s CEO said he would work with Musk, who has taken to calling his former ally “Scam Altman,” as the industry grapples with new concerns about AI safety.
“If you want me to be able to work with him, maybe you should be happy for me to fight back every now and then, but I’ll work with Elon, of course,” he said.
For his part, Altman said he “would not call myself a saint.” At the same time, he doesn’t see himself as the biggest problem.
“I don’t know if I’m the one you’re supposed to be looking for between Elon and me,” he said.
In July, Musk lashed out at Altman when another account said he had “warned the world about the Altman scam.”
Musk quoted this message and added: “He takes scamming to a whole new level.”
In response, Altman criticized Musk’s advocacy for orbital data centers, a topic the OpenAI CEO has repeatedly expressed skepticism about.
“Homeboy, you are the one selling short-term space data centers to public market investors,” Altman wrote.
Despite the drama, AI companies have taken new steps toward cooperation. The leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceXAI, Google and Nvidia signed a White House-led agreement in which the companies agreed to certain self-imposed security measures.
Altman told Politico’s Decoded podcast that there was no single group discussion, but that border lab officials had several avenues to continue talking.
“There’s no big WhatsApp that everyone participates in,” Altman said, “but there are a lot of people, you know, meeting at the same conference. There are calls, occasional meetings, stuff like that.”
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