Investor group led by Elon Musk makes unsolicited $97bn bid to acquire OpenAI
Elon Musk and Sam Altman were among 11 co-founders of OpenAI in 2015 (Photo: Adobe Stock)
An investor group led by Elon Musk and including Endeavor boss Ari Emanuel on Monday made an unsolicited US$97.4bn offer to acquire the non-profit entity that controls ChatGPT and Sora maker OpenAI.
The move, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), was quickly rebuffed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who posted on Musk-owned X saying “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
The offer is the latest development in a long-running dispute between Musk and Altman over the future of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) giant.
Musk and Altman were among 11 co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, with the two men serving as co-chairs. However, Musk exited the board in 2018 in a move that, at the time, was framed as eliminating a conflict of interest for Musk, whose electric car company Tesla was moving further into AI.
That account has since been disputed by Altman and other co-founders, who claim Musk left when he was unable to gain sole control of OpenAI, an accusation Musk denies. Musk went on to launch his own AI startup, xAI, with its own AI chatbot Grok.
Central to the dispute between Musk and Altman is OpenAI’s shift away from being a not-for-profit entity. After launching as a non-profit in 2015, the company shifted towards a “capped profit” model in 2019, with a for-profit subsidiary that enabled it to raise funding from the likes of Microsoft.
That subsidiary is now being turned into a traditional for-profit company after it closed a funding round valuing it at US$157bn, with plans afoot to spin off the not-for-profit entity. OpenAI and Microsoft are currently negotiating how much the latter’s investment in OpenAI is worth once it is converted into equity in the new for-profit company.
Musk has taken issue with OpenAI’s for-profit shift, previously launching lawsuits against Altman and OpenAI. On Monday, he claimed that his goal is for OpenAI to return to its charitable roots.
“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” he said in a statement via his lawyer Marc Toberoff, adding that “we will make sure that happens.”
The investor consortium includes Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital and 8VC, while Emanuel is involved in backing the bid through his own investment fund, according to WSJ.
“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,” said Musk in the statement.
The investor group said that it is prepared to “consider matching or exceeding higher bids.”
