Elon Musk leads a consortium backed by xAI and investment firms including one run by Joe Lonsdale and Ari Emanuel's fund to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion, targeting the nonprofit parent organization and all its assets. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rejected the bid with a sarcastic counteroffer to buy Twitter for $9.74 billion, prompting Musk to call him a swindler. The unsolicited offer escalates years of conflict between Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but left in 2019 to start xAI, and Altman over OpenAI's direction and its ongoing restructuring from nonprofit to for-profit status planned for completion by 2026. The bid comes as OpenAI participates in the Trump administration's $500 billion Stargate AI initiative while xAI remains excluded from the deal.
Musk's $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI and Altman's rejection
- ▪Sam Altman declined Elon Musk's bid for OpenAI by posting on X that OpenAI would buy Twitter for $9.74 billion instead
- ▪The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI
- ▪Elon Musk is leading a consortium of investors that submitted a bid of $97.4 billion for all assets of OpenAI to OpenAI's board of directors
Musk and Altman's ongoing feud over OpenAI's direction
- ▪Elon Musk started an AI company called xAI after leaving OpenAI in 2019
- ▪Elon Musk sued OpenAI over OpenAI's restructuring plans in 2024, dropped the suit, then refiled it
- ▪Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion and renamed it X
- ▪Elon Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI but left the company in 2019
OpenAI's restructuring from non-profit to for-profit entity
- ▪Donald Trump tapped OpenAI to be part of a group of AI companies to work on a $500 billion deal called Stargate to invest in AI technology
Perspective of Sam Altman and OpenAI leadership
- ▪Sam Altman treated Elon Musk's $97.4 billion OpenAI bid as unserious by countering with a sarcastic offer to buy Twitter for $9.74 billion
Perspective of xAI
- ▪xAI has been excluded from the $500 billion Stargate AI deal that includes OpenAI
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