Elon Musk Roasts Don Lemon Amid OpenAI Apple Feud With Sam Altman

Elon Musk roasts Don Lemon less than his rivals these days: his real target lately has been Sam Altman, and the latest round of insults erupted after Apple sued OpenAI on July 10 over claims the startup lifted hardware secrets for a competing device. Musk jumped on the news within hours, and the fight has spilled well past social media into two companies that ordinary investors can now actually buy shares of.

Musk, who cofounded OpenAI before splitting with Altman and now runs the newly public SpaceX along with its xAI unit, wasted no time. He dug up an old post calling Altman "Scam Altman" and piled on, saying Altman had taken scamming to a new level. Tying his jab to Apple's lawsuit, Musk accused Altman of going from stealing an open source AI charity to trying to steal Apple's phone technology outright.

Altman Fires Back on X

Altman didn't let it slide. He posted a reply aimed squarely at Musk's business empire, writing that Musk is the one selling public market investors on short term space data centers, a reference to the orbital data centers Musk has floated as a way to handle AI's enormous power needs. Altman also slipped in a plug for his own product, claiming that plenty of benchmarks already point to GPT 5.6 as the best model out there, though he joked the surest sign is that Musk is obsessed with him again.

Underneath the trash talk sits something more concrete: both men are steering companies chasing investor dollars in very different ways.

Two Companies, Two Very Different Paths to Investors

Musk's swipe at Altman lands on a company still working toward its debut on public markets. OpenAI confirmed in June that it had filed confidential draft paperwork for an IPO, and reports suggest a valuation north of $1 trillion, though the company's chief financial officer has hinted the actual listing might not happen until late 2026 or even 2027.

Altman's shot at Musk, meanwhile, targets a stock people can buy today. SpaceX went public on June 12 in what became the largest IPO ever recorded, pricing shares at $135 and closing its first full day of trading with a market value near $2 trillion.

What set the SpaceX offering apart wasn't just its size. The company aimed to hand about 30 percent of the deal to everyday investors, far above the typical 5 to 10 percent seen in major IPOs, and ended up allocating roughly 20 percent to individual buyers worldwide through retail brokerages like Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi and E*TRADE.

Wall Street Isn't Convinced on Either Side

Altman's mockery of Musk's space data center ambitions cuts at a piece of the growth pitch SpaceX has made to shareholders, and not everyone buying that pitch is impressed. CFRA started coverage of the stock with a sell rating, pointing to what it described as an overly ambitious growth strategy paired with a stretched valuation. Morningstar's own math landed even further from the IPO price, pegging the shares at a fraction of what they debuted at.

A Lawsuit That Already Went Musk's Way, Sort Of

This isn't the first legal skirmish between the two. Back in May, a federal jury threw out Musk's own lawsuit accusing Altman and OpenAI of abandoning the nonprofit mission the company was founded on, ruling that Musk had simply waited too long to bring the claim. Musk said he plans to appeal, so this particular fight isn't over even if round one went against him.

How Long Can the Feud Stay Just Talk?

Right now the sniping is confined to X, insults traded in public view while each man defends the company he's betting his reputation on. But SpaceX and OpenAI aren't side projects. One is already sitting in retail investment accounts, and the other is angling to get there. Whatever Musk and Altman say to each other next, the companies behind the words are the part actually worth watching.