Elon Musk accuses Sam Altman of lying about Tesla Roadster refund: ‘That’s in your nature…’

​Elon Musk has denied Sam Altman’s allegations that the OpenAI CEO did not receive a refund for the cancellation of his Tesla Roadster. Altman had earlier shared screenshots of his order for the Tesla Roadster and said that while he was ‘excited for the car’, 7.5 years felt like a long time to wait for it.

​Altman had also stated that his email to the Tesla team about refunding the $50,000 deposit for the car did not receive a response.

​Musk replied to the post saying that Altman had actually not shared the full story, stating that he had received a refund for the car deposit within 24 hours.

​“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,” Musk responded to Altman’s post.

​Notably, the Tesla Roadster was first unveiled by the billionaire in 2017 with a target for production set for 2020. The model has faced many delays, and Musk has said that the company is ‘getting close’ to demonstrating a prototype. He also said that the unveiling would be “unforgettable — whether it’s good or bad.”

​Musk also went on to accuse Altman of ‘stealing a non-profit,’ a hint about the recent change in the structure of OpenAI, where the company transformed from a non-profit to a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC). While OpenAI says the non-profit does retain a sizable control over the new company, the allegations about stealing the non-profit from Musk still continue.

​The billionaire, who is also an original co-founder of OpenAI, has also filed multiple lawsuits against the ChatGPT maker. In one of the lawsuits, Musk claims that the AI startup has abandoned its original non-profit mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity in favour of a “closed-source, maximum-profit company” which is effectively controlled by Microsoft.

​In a recent lawsuit, Musk’s xAI had claimed that OpenAI tried to steal trade secrets from the company by targeting and poaching key employees.

​Meanwhile, OpenAI has previously denied all accusations made by Musk and stated that the transition to a for-profit model was essential to raise the huge capital needed to develop and deploy the advanced AI models.

​The company had also counter-sued Musk, claiming that the billionaire had engaged in ‘bad-faith tactics’ and ‘unlawful harassment’ in order to damage the company’s reputation.

​The two companies are also engaged in a tight battle in the AI space, where ChatGPT continues to be the leading AI model used globally, while Musk is trying to use his social media platform and other related companies to improve the standing of his Grok AI chatbot