Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief, responded with a jest about buying Twitter for $9.74 billion.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, has been in a feud with Altman and launched his own AI startup, xAI.
Elon Musk is leading an investment group offering $97.4 billion for the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, marking a new front in his war with the ChatGPT-maker, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Musk attorney Marc Toberoff said he submitted the bid to OpenAI’s board of directors, according to the Journal.
“No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” OpenAI chief Sam Altman wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, apparently responding to the offer.
Musk, who bought X under its former moniker for $44b in 2022, replied to the post by simply writing: “Swindler.”
Musk’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Tesla boss and close ally of US President Donald Trump has been mired in an ongoing feud with Altman, with Musk filing repeated lawsuits against the San Francisco-based OpenAI.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, with the company becoming the world’s leading AI startup since he left in 2018. He launched his own generative AI startup, xAI, in 2023.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015. Photo / File
“We created a bespoke structure: a for-profit, controlled by the non-profit, with a capped profit share for investors and employees,” OpenAI said in a December blog post that outlined a plan to become a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation.
The shift would require the company to balance the interests of shareholders, stakeholders, and the public in a tilt away from non-profit, according to the post.
Musk established xAI in early 2023 to have a foothold in the technology expected to disrupt how people live and work.
OpenAI is one of the world’s highest-valued start-ups, but loses money on the high costs of turning out its expensive technology.
Trump in January announced a major investment to build infrastructure for AI led by Japanese giant SoftBank, cloud giant Oracle and OpenAI.
The venture, called Stargate, “will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States”, Trump said in remarks at the White House.
OpenAI co-founder and boss Altman, SoftBank’s chief Masayoshi Son and Oracle founder Larry Ellison attended the announcement.
But Musk was quick to cast doubt on the project, saying the money promised for the investment actually was not there.
The comments marked a rare instance of a split between the world’s richest man and Trump, with Musk playing a key role in the new US administration after spending $270 million on the Republican’s election campaign.
‘Not for sale’
Artificial intelligence developer OpenAI is “not for sale”, chief executive Sam Altman said in Paris on Tuesday in response to the reported $97.4b bid.
“OpenAI has a mission... of making AGI benefit all of humanity,” Altman told a tech business event on the sidelines of the Paris AI summit, referring to an artificial general intelligence that would be smarter than a human in all areas.
“We are not for sale,” he added, reiterating the ChatGPT maker’s message throughout the day in response to the takeover bid from Musk.
The Wall Street Journal reported late on Monday that Musk had made his $97.4 billion offer to the board.
The Tesla, SpaceX and OpenAI challenger xAI chief’s intervention comes as OpenAI is raising cash and transforming itself into a for-profit entity.
OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane had earlier said Musk’s offer came from a competitor “who has struggled to keep up with the technology and compete with us in the marketplace”.
Altman said that the economic potential of AI made the present a “moment that I’ve never seen before”.
“Maybe it was like this at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Maybe it was like this at the beginning of the internet.”
