The Brief
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- Elon Musk and several investors announced a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rejected the financial offer.
- Altman and Musk worked together to start OpenAI but have clashed over the direction of the company.
Elon Musk and a group of investors is offering $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit behind OpenAI.
The Associated Press reported that Musk and his own AI startup, xAI, and other firms backing the bid, including Baron Capital Group, Valor Management, Atreides Management, Vy Fund, Emanuel Capital Management and Eight Partners VC want to take control of the ChatGPT maker and return it to its original goal as a nonprofit research lab, Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff told the news outlet.
Attorneys for OpenAI and Musk battled in a California federal court last week as a judge considered Musk’s request for a court order that would block the ChatGPT maker from converting itself to a for-profit company.
What they’re saying:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rejected the bid on X, saying, “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Toberoff said in a statement obtained by the AP that if Altman and OpenAI’s current board “are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time.”
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has not made a ruling on Musk’s request and raised concerns regarding OpenAI and its relationship with business partner Microsoft and stating that she wouldn’t stop the case from moving to trial as soon as 2026 so a jury can decide, the AP reported.
The backstory:
Musk and Altman, who collaborated to start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it, have been in a feud over the startup’s direction since Musk resigned from its board in 2018.
According to the AP, Musk sued the company in 2024, first in a California state court and later in federal court, claiming the organization betrayed its founding goals as a nonprofit research lab that would benefit the public good by safely building better-than-human AI. Musk invested $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018.
The Source
Information for this story was provided by the Associated Press, which shares background on the investment bid and received a statement from an attorney for Elon Musk related to the bid to buy OpenAI. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.
