In the midst of a long-running, highly publicized feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Elon Musk teamed up with a group of investors offering $97.4 billion to purchase OpenAI, Inc. According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, says he submitted the unsolicited offer to OpenAI’s board of directors on Monday.
Toberoff provided WSJ a statement from Elon Musk: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens.”
The Wall Street Journal notes that Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, is backing the bid and could potentially merge with OpenAI if the board accepts the offer.
Beyond xAI, several investors are backing Musk, including Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, 8VC, and Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel.
“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,” Toberoff said, also noting that the group is willing to match or exceed any future bids.
In return, Altman took to X and offered to buy Twitter for $9.74 billion instead.
Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and served as co-chairs for the first few years of the company’s existence. In 2018, Musk resigned from the board of directors, and while he has said it was due to potential conflicts of interest with Tesla, Altman claims that Musk left after the board refused to let him take control of the company.
Despite Musk’s statement about returning OpenAI to a “safety-focused force for good,” OpenAI has shared numerous correspondences from the SpaceX CEO that suggest he was not only on board with a for-profit structure but also wanted full control.
