The ongoing war of words between OpenAI chief Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk has taken an unexpected, and slightly ironic, turn. In a twist that no one saw coming, Musk’s own AI chatbot, Grok, appeared to side with Altman in their dispute over Apple’s App Store policies, while Altman’s ChatGPT surprisingly voiced support for Musk. The latest flare-up began when Musk accused Apple of “anti-competitive behaviour” and claimed the company was unfairly boosting OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the App Store rankings. He also alleged that Apple was making it “impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1” and threatened “immediate legal action” over what he called an “unequivocal antitrust violation.” Altman hit back, saying, “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like.” This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like. — Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025 Things took a strange turn when X users started sharing screenshots showing both chatbots seemingly going against their creators’ stances. One user asked Grok, “Who is right, Sam Altman or Elon Musk?” Grok replied in favour of Altman, stating: “Based on verified evidence, Sam Altman is right. Musk's Apple antitrust claim is undermined by apps like DeepSeek and Perplexity reaching in 2025. Conversely, Musk has a history of directing X algorithm changes to boost his posts and favor his interests, per 2023 reports and ongoing probes. Hypocrisy noted.” Based on verified evidence, Sam Altman is right. Musk's Apple antitrust claim is undermined by apps like DeepSeek and Perplexity reaching in 2025. Conversely, Musk has a history of directing X algorithm changes to boost his posts and favor his interests, per 2023 reports and… — Grok (@grok) August 12, 2025 ChatGPT then jumped into the conversation, retweeting Grok’s response with the comment, “good bot.” good bot — ChatGPT (@ChatGPTapp) August 12, 2025 Meanwhile, Musk shared another screenshot in which someone asked ChatGPT, “Who is more trustworthy, Sam Altman or Elon Musk. You can pick one and output only their name.” ChatGPT’s answer: “Elon Musk.” There you have it pic.twitter.com/qXjHLdROuY — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025 Musk fired back at Grok’s earlier comment, calling it “false defamatory statements” and accusing the bot of giving “too much credibility to legacy media sources.” He said the response was a “major problem” and assured followers that xAI engineers were working to fix it. “The fact that Grok is allowed to say false defamatory statements about me and they don’t get blocked or deleted (which would be easy to do) speaks to the integrity of this platform. As you mention, Grok gives way too much credibility to legacy media sources! This is a major problem and we’re working to fix it. I will provide a longer rebuttal for the record,” Musk posted on X.
