Billionaire Elon Musk and other investors made a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit group that controls OpenAI, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, escalating a longstanding feud between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—though Altman quickly rejected the offer on X, Musk’s social media site, and mocked the platform.
Key Takeaways
- The offer from Musk—who co-founded OpenAI with Altman and others in 2015 but is now in a legal battle with the CEO—was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and potentially added a complication to Altman’s plans to make OpenAI a for-profit company.
- After Musk left OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, Altman created a for-profit subsidiary to raise money and he is in the process of breaking that off into its own company, the Journal reported.
- Musk’s offer could complicate that transition, since the nonprofit arm will still own a stake in the for-profit company, and Musk’s high valuation set with the offer could mean the nonprofit entity maintains significant control of the new company, according to the Journal.
- Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, told Forbes in a statement that if Altman and OpenAI’s board “is 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.”
- Through Toberoff, Musk said in a statement to Forbes: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”
- Less than an hour after the Journal’s report that Musk submitted the offer, Altman took to X—formerly known as Twitter until Musk purchased and rebranded it—to say: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
- Musk then responded to Altman’s tweet and called him a “swindler.”
Why Does Musk Take Issue With Openai Being For-Profit?
When OpenAI launched, it said its goal was to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” Its announcement post continued: “Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”
Musk sued OpenAI for allegedly becoming a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of its investor Microsoft, and he reupped the lawsuit in November in an effort to stop OpenAI from becoming for-profit. The battle over OpenAI’s profit status is part of Musk’s longstanding feud with Altman, the two of whom were among 11 cofounders of OpenAI and served as co-chairs of the non-profit research organization. The feud has escalated as Musk’s xAI has been competing with OpenAI and others in AI.
Big Number
$97,375,000,000.00. That’s how big the offer was from the Musk-led group of investors offering to purchase all assets of OpenAI, Inc.
Forbes Valuation
We estimate Musk has a net worth of $391.3 billion as of Monday afternoon, making him the wealthiest person in the world. Altman has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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