While Elon Musk expands his AI empires, OpenAI chief Sam Altman faces a political and economic double threat. Who will win the race for supremacy in AI?
Swindly Sam" – that's what Elon Musk calls the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman.
A Broken Pact – and a New Power Struggle
In 2015, Musk and Altman founded OpenAI as a non-profit organization with the vision of making AI safe and accessible to the public. But this mission seems long forgotten. Musk, now the head of his own AI company xAI, accuses OpenAI of engaging in "Shakespearean deception" after the company opened its structure to investors. Meanwhile, Altman is struggling to keep OpenAI at the forefront—against Musk and his new super AI "Grok-2".
Musk skillfully uses his strategic position. Not only does he lead a competing company with xAI, but he is also expanding his supercomputer project "Colossus" in Memphis—a project established in record time. With over 100,000 Nvidia graphics processors, it is the world's most powerful AI computing unit. A supercomputer that gives Musk an advantage that OpenAI can hardly ignore.
No one has the same computing power as Elon," says a major investor in Musk's company. And that might make the difference.
Political Lever or Moral Boundary?
While Altman courts support from the new Trump administration—even a personal donation of 1 million dollars to Trump’s inauguration fund has been made public—Musk has already secured proximity to the President. Observers fear that Musk could use his political influence to deliberately weaken OpenAI. The notion that Musk creates regulatory obstacles for his competitors is a "dangerous scenario" for critics like Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and Microsoft partner.
But Musk remains unimpressed. On X, his social media platform, he announced that his political decisions would "serve national interests" and that "all AI companies would be treated equally." Skeptics consider this mere rhetoric.
Nobody really believes that," says a lawyer who used to feel Musk's wrath. And Altman himself seems unconvinced: "I believe Elon will do the right thing, but it would be profoundly un-American to use political power to harm competitors.
xAI and the Power of Data: The True Advantage
But the biggest threat to OpenAI may not lie in politics, but in Musk's data-driven empire. With access to data from Tesla, Starlink satellites, and X (formerly Twitter), Musk has built one of the most extensive proprietary databases in the world. This data flows directly into the development of xAI, allowing "Grok-2" to seriously compete with OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini.
Musk has an impressive strategy: He combines data from different companies, creating an unbeatable advantage," says an industry insider. For OpenAI, this means not only having to compete against xAI's AI models but also against an entire ecosystem of companies that Musk controls.
An Unequal Duel
As OpenAI tries to restructure and stay ahead, Musk has a decisive advantage: speed.
Altman has little time. Between lawsuits, political pressure, and the relentless expansion of xAI, he fights on all fronts. But in an industry growing as rapidly as AI, the winner could take it all – and the loser may fade into oblivion.
The next round of this tech battle will be decisive. And whoever triumphs in the end could not only dominate the AI industry but also determine who has the say in a data-driven world.
