Is Slack just 'fake work'? Sam Altman thinks so; Elon Musk warns Microsoft

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has said that popular workplace messaging app Slack contributes to a lot of “fake work,” adding that an AI-driven alternative could soon replace traditional productivity tools such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, and Slack itself.

In a conversation on the Conversations with Tyler YouTube channel, Altman said, “There are positives about Slack. There’s also like kind of dread the first hour of the morning, the last hour before I go to bed, where I'm just dealing with this explosion of Slack.”

“I think it does create a lot of fake work. I suspect there is something new to build that is going to replace a lot of the current sort of office productivity suite — whatever you think of, like Docs, Slides, emails, Slack, whatever. That will be sort of the AI-driven version of all of these things,” he added.

Altman’s remark quickly drew attention from tech billionaire Elon Musk, who seized the moment to take a fresh swipe at Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest partner and investor.

Replying to a video of Altman’s comments, Musk wrote on X, “As I was saying, OpenAI will compete directly with Microsoft.”

In another post, Musk said, “At this point, it’s insanely suicidal for Microsoft to continue supporting OpenAI.”

In August, shortly after the launch of OpenAI’s latest large language model GPT-5, Musk had warned that the company would “eat Microsoft alive.”

GPT-5, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure, introduced advanced reasoning capabilities and a dynamic task router that automatically selects the best AI model for various consumer, enterprise and developer applications.

Microsoft integrated GPT-5 across its products, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI Foundry, with CEO Satya Nadella describing it as “the most capable model yet from our partners at OpenAI.”

Responding to Nadella’s announcement at the time, Musk posted: “OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive.” To which Nadella replied: “People have been trying for 50 years and that’s the fun of it! Each day you learn something new, and innovate, partner, and compete. Excited for Grok 4 on Azure and looking forward to Grok 5!”

Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 but left three years later, has frequently criticised the company’s for-profit pivot. Earlier this year, he sued OpenAI, Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, accusing them of betraying the firm’s original nonprofit mission.

In February, a Musk-led consortium reportedly offered to acquire the nonprofit entity controlling OpenAI. Altman rejected the bid with a jab on X, saying, “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”