- Sam Altman ordered a Tesla Roadster in 2018 and paid $45,000 upfront
- After nearly seven years, Altman sought a refund but Tesla's email bounced back
- Tesla's reservations email was unreachable, blocking Altman's refund request
Sam Altman wants a refund from Elon Musk. The OpenAI CEO and tech mogul had placed an order for a Roadster automobile, as per screenshots he shared on social media. After nearly seven years of no delivery, Altman mailed the company for a refund — only for the mail to bounce back.
A tale in three acts: pic.twitter.com/ClRZBgT24g
October 30, 2025In a post on X, he shared a series of emails revealing the unexpectedly long-pending reservation.
The first screenshot shows a Tesla confirmation email dated July 11, 2018, thanking the customer for completing a reservation for the new Roadster. The company acknowledges receiving a $45,000 reservation payment and confirms that the booking is paid in full.
A follow-up screenshot shows Altman replying to Tesla, writing: "Hi, I'd like to cancel my reservation. Could you please refund me the $50k?"
But the final image shows an automated email from Mail Delivery Subsystem, indicating that the message wasn't delivered. The Tesla reservations address, according to the error, "couldn't be found or is unable to receive email," with the server rejecting the message.
The series of screenshots suggests that despite paying tens of thousands of dollars to reserve the high-performance Roadster more than six years ago, Altman was unable to reach Tesla through the listed reservations email to request a refund.
Social media netizens displayed an array of reactions to Altman's post, with most berating the ChatGPT founder for being able to afford vehicles like a Koneigsegg Regera on a non-profit founder's salary.
"This seems a lot less bad than taking donations for a non-profit, then converting to a for-profit after developing a bunch of valuable tech," a user stated.
To be sure, Altman's company completed its shift of turning into a for-profit very recently, on Oct. 28, 2025. The artificial intelligence startup stated that its nonprofit arm is now called the OpenAI Foundation, which holds an equity stake worth about $130 billion in its for-profit arm.
Another user asked X's inbuilt AI chatbot to calculate the value of $50,000 invested in Tesla's equity at the time Altman had bought his Roadster. The company displayed returns of over 20 times, with the $50,000 investment growing to be worth $1,035,000 today.
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