Elon Musk escalated a feud between Openy and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday. The billionaire leads a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a $97.4 billion bid for “all assets” of the artificial intelligence company to Openai’s board of directors.
The startup that runs ChatGpt is working to rebuild itself from its original non-commercial status. Openai also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk’s unsolicited offer can complicate the company’s plans. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the proposed bid.
“If Sam Altman and the current Openai, Inc. board of directors are intended to be fully for-profit organizations, it is important that the charity is heavily compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it. It’s in our time,” said Mark Toberov, a lawyer representing investors.
Altman posted a response to X shortly after the news broke, saying, “Thank you, but I’ll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if necessary.” Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and renamed X. Musk responded to the post by saying “Swindler.”
Musk was a co-founder of Openai, but left the company in 2019 and founded his own AI company called Xai. Over the past few years, he has been fighting with Altman over company directions. He sued Openai over its company’s restructuring plan, dropped the lawsuit and then cracked down again.
The bid is supported by Xai and several investment companies, including those run by Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded Stealth Government contractor Palantir. Ari Emanuel, CEO of entertainment company Endeavor, also joined the group through his investment fund.
“At X.ai, we live in the values Openai has promised to follow. Grok has created open source. We respect the rights of content creators,” Musk said in a statement. . “It’s time for Openai to return to its open source, safety-focused power. We’ll see that happens.”
Toberoff told the Wall Street Journal that Musk’s consortium of investors is ready to match or increase its value than any other bid that could occur.
Openai claims that the restructuring is essential to the company’s lifespan and provides access to capital. He says that leaving the non-profit structure alone will not keep up with the highly competitive world of AI innovation. Openai said a restructuring is expected by 2026.
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Musk is a close ally of Donald Trump, but Altman met with the president and attended the inauguration. Trump taps Openai and is part of a group of AI companies, working on a $500 million deal called Stargate to invest in burgeoning technology. Mask’s Xai is not part of this deal.
