Elon Musk is leading a group of investors reportedly offering an unsolicited $97.4billion to purchase the nonprofit that has control of OpenAI.
The bid submitted to OpenAI’s board of directors on Monday intensifies Musk’s battle with the company’s CEO, Sam Altman.
‘It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,’ stated Musk through his lawyer Marc Toberoff, who sent the bid, according to The Wall Street Journal.
‘We will make sure that happens.’
Altman quickly responded to Musk on X (formerly Twitter), which the latter owns.
‘No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,’ wrote Altman.
The offer is backed by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, venture heads including Valor Equity Partners and entertainment mogul Ari Emanuel, among others.
OpenAI was co-founded by Altman and Musk in 2015 as a charity and Musk left in 2019.
OpenAI proceeded to form a for-profit subsidiary that has allowed it to raise funds from investors including Microsoft. Altman has been trying to convert the subsidiary into a traditional company, and if it pans out, it would be one of the biggest conversions of a charity into a for-profit business of all time.
Among the obstacles Altman faces is OpenAI’s negotiations with stakeholders including Microsoft on how equity would be divided, and a letter its rival Meta Platforms sent to the California attorney general opposing the plan.
Musk views Altman’s plan as betraying OpenAI’s initial mission of developing AI openly and safely. He and his group of investors are apparently ready to match and exceed any higher bids for OpenAI.
‘If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI Inc. Board of Directors 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,’ stated Toberoff.
OpenAI is known for developing and launching ChatGPT in 2022 and has largely been the driver of the generative AI boom.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman months ago, alleging that the founders approached him to fund a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI to help humanity, not make money.
OpenAI was valued at $157billion in October.
When President Donald Trump announced the $500billion Stargate project led by OpenAI to support artificial intelligence development and construct data centers, Musk quickly criticized it and questioned that the funds were secured for it.
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