Window into Tech Execs’ Comm
Texts between Elon Musk and Sam Altman reveal conflict and vulnerability. The messages, below, surfaced in public court records from Musk v. Altman (2026).
Students might analyze these messages for character and tone. What stands out is Altman’s attempt to build goodwill—calling him “my hero,” thanking him, crediting him for OpenAI, and relating, “we both think this is critical.” Musk seems unimpressed, although his response is so short, it’s hard to say.
Altman also is vulnerable about feeling hurt and tries to establish common ground with his comparison of Musk’s 60 Minutes interview. Altman seems genuinely open to feedback, although this could be strategic: get Musk on your side before he speaks out publicly again.
Musk gives little back—an apology for something vague that wasn’t his “intent” followed by “but” and then a doozy of a statement, which Altman agrees with. He again tries an analogy with attacks on Twitter, but then the entire focus changes to recruiting. Now we might think this is the core issue, or at least one of them. Altman uses the classic persuasive tactic by contextualizing the number of hires from Telsa, although even a small number of critical players could “hurt” Tesla (an interesting word choice for a company after describing his own emotional state).
The last line—”super important company”—makes Altman seem young, familiar with Musk, or both. This seems like an odd thing to say to the founder and CEO, particularly the wealthiest man in the world, who very well knows that.
We know their relationship deteriorated, much of it public on X the past two years. Now Musk is suing Altman over the nonprofit status of OpenAI.
February 18, 2023
Sam Altman
i remember seeing you in a tv interview a long time ago (maybe 60 minutes?) where you being attacked by some guys, and you said they were heroes of yours and it was really tough.
well, you’re my hero and that’s what it feels like when you attack openai. totally get we have some screwed some stuff up, but we have worked incredibly hard to do the right thing, and i think we have ensured that neither google nor anyone else is on a path to have unilateral control over AGI, which i believe we both think is critical.
i am tremendously thankful for everything you’ve done to help—i dont think openai would have happened without you—and it really fucking hurts when you publicly attack openai.
Elon Musk
I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake.
Sam Altman
i agree with that, and i would really love to hear the things you think we should be doing differently/better.
it’s also not clear to me how the attacks on twitter help the fate of civilization, but that’s less important to me that getting to the right substance.
also, i checked with our team on recruiting from tesla. we really are doing very little relative to the size of the company, but i will make sure we don’t hurt tesla, i obviously think it’s a super important company.