Elon Musk Says Sam Altman Already Got His Tesla Roadster Refund

Elon Musk and Sam Altman are once again trading public jabs — this time over a long-delayed Tesla Roadster reservation and a $50,000 refund.

The exchange began on Musk’s platform X, where Altman, CEO of OpenAI, posted a thread he titled “a tale in three acts.” The post included screenshots showing that he reserved a Tesla Roadster back in 2018, recently tried to cancel it, and requested a refund — only for his cancellation email to bounce back.

“I really was excited for the car!” Altman wrote. “And I understand delays. But 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait.”

The second-generation Tesla Roadster, first unveiled in November 2017, has faced multiple production delays. Musk recently announced that the redesigned model would be revealed by the end of this year.

In response to Altman’s post, Musk fired back with a familiar accusation:

“You stole a nonprofit,” he wrote — a reference to his long-standing criticism that Altman transformed OpenAI from a nonprofit research group into a profit-driven company.

Musk has repeatedly accused OpenAI of abandoning its original mission and filed lawsuits seeking to challenge the company’s for-profit restructuring. He even launched a competing AI startup, xAI, which is currently suing OpenAI and Apple for alleged anticompetitive behaviour.

Altman, in turn, dismissed Musk’s accusations as “remarkable,” claiming that Musk uses X to manipulate outcomes that benefit his own companies and harm competitors.

Musk didn’t stop there. In a follow-up post, he added one final note to Altman’s “three-act” story:

“And you forgot to mention act 4, where this issue was fixed and you received a refund within 24 hours. But that is in your nature.”

The exchange underscores the growing tension between the two former OpenAI collaborators, whose rivalry has spilt into public view through tweets, lawsuits, and competing AI ventures.