Elon Musk says OpenAI will ‘eat Microsoft alive’ as GPT-5 launches to consumers
Elon Musk has fired another warning shot at one of the world’s most valuable companies as yet another AI bombshell lands.
The AI arms race might be one of the most consequential things we witness this decade. But while the boffins behind the scenes scramble to create faster technology, the CEOs are on social media slinging mud at each other.
Elon Musk is back swinging at tech behemoth Microsoft, warning that the company worth $3.8 trillion (A$5.9T) is about to be “eaten alive” by its prized partner.
The tech world is in a knife fight over who will control the most powerful AI, with alliances forming quickly in an effort to become the first enterprise to achieve AGI.
In 2023, Microsoft sunk $13.5 billion into OpenAI, a move that has now seen ChatGPT weave into Word, Excel, GitHub, and several more of its flagship products.
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Musk, who famously walked away from OpenAI’s board in 2018 accusing it of racketeering, has now warned Microsoft it may have signed its own redundancy papers by merging its products with the artificial intelligence behemoth.
As a software giant, Microsoft led the way for decades as personal computers became the norm throughout the 1990s and beyond. But now the latest revolution centres around an entirely different side of computing. The AI boom has seen OpenAI launch itself into the stratosphere.
The company has gone from a fringe start-up to one of the most influential businesses on the planet in ten short years, with major companies like Meta attempting to poach its developers in record nine-figure deals.
Despite his chequered history with the company, Musk believes the utility offered by AI will eventually make Microsoft’s core products irrelevant.
“OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive,” Musk posted under the announcement.
The latest jab came just hours after OpenAI launched GPT-5, its much-hyped new model. Microsoft boss Satya Nadella celebrated its rollout across the company’s products.
And while Musk tried to crash the party, Nadella didn’t flinch.
“People have been trying for 50 years, and that’s the fun of it! … Excited for Grok 4 on Azure and looking forward to Grok 5!”
OpenAI chief Sam Altman was equally dismissive.
“I don’t think about him that much. I thought he was just, like, tweeting all day … about how much OpenAI sucks,” he said.
In the lead-up, Altman promised GPT-5 would be “smarter than GPT-4,” which he once admitted “kind of sucks.”
He also said the new model scares him, claiming it’s advancing faster than the oversight needed to control it.
Originally published as Elon Musk says OpenAI will ‘eat Microsoft alive’ as GPT-5 launches to consumers
