The billionaires are fighting again, with Elon Musk and Sam Altman reigniting their long-running feud after Apple accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets to develop a new generation of AI hardware.

Musk launched the latest attack on X, reviving his “Scam Altman” nickname for the OpenAI chief and accusing him of taking fraud “to a whole new level”.

“After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple’s phone technology,” Musk wrote, referring to Apple’s newly filed lawsuit against OpenAI, its io Products hardware division and two former Apple employees.

The bickering comes as Apple alleges OpenAI orchestrated a campaign to obtain confidential information about unreleased products, engineering systems, suppliers and manufacturing techniques as it develops hardware with former Apple design chief Jony Ive (pictured bel0w).

OpenAI has denied wrongdoing, saying it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets”.

Altman responded by targeting Musk’s plans to place AI data centres in orbit, accusing him of selling public-market investors on the prospect of short-term space-based computing infrastructure.

Musk claimed SpaceX would begin flying the systems next year and told Altman he could visit “if your parole officer approves”.

Altman also used the exchange to promote OpenAI’s latest AI model, claiming benchmark results suggested GPT-5.6 Sol was the world’s best-performing model.

“The most reliable way to tell is that Elon is obsessed with me again,” Altman wrote.

The personal attacks come shortly after Musk lost a high-profile court case against OpenAI over claims the company abandoned its original non-profit mission. Musk has indicated he plans to appeal.

The former business partners co-founded OpenAI in 2015 before Musk left its board in 2018 and later launched rival AI company xAI.

It is not the first time their dispute has dragged Apple into the firing line.

Last year, Musk accused Apple of favouring ChatGPT over Grok in its App Store rankings, while Altman accused Musk of manipulating X’s algorithms to promote his own businesses.