Elon Musk Leads $97.4 Billion Bid to Acquire OpenAI Amid Ongoing Feud with Sam Altman
Elon Musk is spearheading an investment group that has made a $97.4 billion offer to acquire the nonprofit entity controlling OpenAI, escalating his ongoing battle with the ChatGPT maker, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
According to the report, Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, submitted the bid to OpenAI’s board of directors. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to dismiss the offer in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Altman wrote.
Musk, who purchased the social media platform—then called Twitter—for $44 billion in 2022, responded with a single-word post: “Swindler.”
Musk’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Tesla CEO and close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump has been locked in an ongoing feud with Altman, having filed multiple lawsuits against the San Francisco-based OpenAI. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018, after which the company surged to become the world’s leading AI startup. In 2023, he launched his own AI venture, xAI, in a bid to compete in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence landscape.
In a December blog post, OpenAI detailed its transition into a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation, a move intended to balance the interests of shareholders, stakeholders, and the broader public while shifting away from its original nonprofit structure.
“We created a bespoke structure: a for-profit, controlled by the non-profit, with a capped profit share for investors and employees,” OpenAI stated in the post.
Despite its status as one of the world’s most valuable startups, OpenAI continues to incur massive operational costs due to the high expense of developing its cutting-edge AI technology.
Meanwhile, Trump announced in January a major AI infrastructure investment spearheaded by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, cloud computing giant Oracle, and OpenAI. Dubbed Stargate, the initiative is projected to invest at least $500 billion in AI development across the United States.
Altman, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison attended the White House announcement. However, Musk was quick to cast doubt on the venture, suggesting that the promised investment funds were not actually secured.
His skepticism marked a rare public disagreement between Musk and Trump, despite the billionaire’s significant influence in the new U.S. administration. Musk reportedly played a key role in the Republican’s return to power, having contributed $270 million to Trump’s election campaign.
With tensions between Musk and OpenAI continuing to escalate, his latest multibillion-dollar bid signals an aggressive push to reclaim influence over the AI giant he helped create. Whether OpenAI’s board will seriously entertain the offer, however, remains uncertain.
AFP
