OpenAI Swiftly Rebuffs Musk's Surprise $97.4 Billion Buyout Attempt

Elon Musk on Monday led a consortium of investors in making a $97.4 billion unsolicited offer to acquire ChatGPT maker OpenAI's nonprofit arm – only to face immediate rejection from CEO Sam Altman.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the bid included backing from Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI and prominent investors like Valor Equity Partners and Baron Capital. Musk co-founded OpenAI as a charity with Altman in 2015.

"It's time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was," Musk said in a statement through his lawyer Marc Toberoff. The consortium pledged to match or exceed any competing offers.

Altman quickly dismissed the proposal on X (formerly Twitter) with a pointed response: "No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want" – an apparent jab at Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022.

Musk responded to the post with a one-word reply: "Swindler."

The attempted takeover comes amid OpenAI's ongoing transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit structure, with the company recently valued at $157 billion. The transformation has been contentious between Musk and his former colleagues. There have been multiple lawsuits where Musk has accused OpenAI of betraying its founding principles.

In a message to employees reported by WSJ, Altman reassured staff that OpenAI's structure prevents any individual from taking control of the company, describing Musk's offer as "tactics to try and weaken us because we are making great progress."

The bid's investor group included other backers such as Atreides Management, Vy Capital, and 8VC, a venture firm led by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, along with Hollywood executive Ari Emanuel's investment fund.

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Tag: OpenAI

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Top Rated Comments

ItsASpider Avatar
18 weeks ago

Musk is salty because AI turned out to be a bigger and more world changing innovation than anything he's done, as cool as his rockets are and as great as Tesla was at popularising EVs. Sam Altman is going to get more pages in the history books than Musk.
What probably more contributed to it is that this is a company that very specifically *didn't* want Musk to have control over it, and has become a success despite (or mayhaps more likely; because of) kicking him out.

Musk has a serious ego problem. I don't know who said it first, but it can all be summed up to this: "He knows the world needs saving, but he'll burn it to the ground if it isn't him who saves it."
Score: 45 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CraigJDuffy Avatar
18 weeks ago

I doubt it. What they currently call AI is not bigger than rockets to Mars.
Which rocket has taken humans to Mars?
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SW3029 Avatar
18 weeks ago

Remember that everything that Altman has was started by Musk. And Musk has proven to have more morals, more rockets, more electric cars, and well, just more of everything than Altman.
lol. more morals?
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SoldOnApple Avatar
18 weeks ago
Musk is salty because AI turned out to be a bigger and more world changing innovation than anything he's done, as cool as his rockets are and as great as Tesla was at popularising EVs. Sam Altman is going to get more pages in the history books than Musk.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArPe Avatar
18 weeks ago

Musk is salty
He’s a troll and chaos agent who is funded by dictatorships who pump up his stock to bribe him. Same thing Trump does with all his listed companies, properties, gold sneakers and meme coins. It’s all bribery.

The enemy has taken over and is gutting your government. The next phase is to turn a blind eye to terrorism around the world so that private armies and private construction companies can get fat contracts. They will not be your friends. They will blow up neighborhoods all over the place using false excuses.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DavidLeblond Avatar
18 weeks ago

Musk is salty because AI turned out to be a bigger and more world changing innovation than anything he's done, as cool as his rockets are and as great as Tesla was at popularising EVs. Sam Altman is going to get more pages in the history books than Musk.
(looks at the news) No, pretty sure what he's doing right now is going to get him quite a few chapters in the history books. Unfortunately.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)