Elon Musk kicks off $97.4 billion effort to buy OpenAI by immediately starting social media beef with Sam Altman
A Wall Street Journal report says a group of investors led by X owner Elon Musk has made an offer to buy the non-profit organization that controls OpenAI for $97.4 billion. Musk said in a statement that the offer was made in order to return OpenAI «to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,» adding, «We will make sure that happens,» but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seems determined to ensure it doesn't happen.
The offer to purchase OpenAI is the latest twist in a dispute that goes back almost a full year: Musk sued OpenAI in March, claiming the company had abandoned «its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity» in exchange for the pursuit of profit. OpenAI was founded as a non-profit but set up a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 after Musk's departure, and the money has been flowing free and fast ever since.
That all sounds noble and altruistic, but in December 2024 OpenAI released a statement saying Musk had pushed a for-profit structure for OpenAI in 2017, prior to his departure, and had demanded majority equity in and the role of CEO of the for-profit division. OpenAI ultimately rejected the offer, telling Musk it worried that «as the company makes genuine progress towards AGI, you will choose to retain your absolute control of the company despite current intent to the contrary.» Musk then proposed a deal between OpenAI and Tesla in order to facilitate fundraising; shortly after that offer was rejected, Musk resigned. In 2023 he founded his own competing AI venture, xAI.
The whole thing brings to mind Musk's infamous Twitter fiasco of 2022, when the world's richest man made an off-the-cuff offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion and then did his best to get out of it before months of legal wrangling arm-twisted him into closing the deal. But the big difference in the OpenAI offer is that it's not just social media dick-swinging that's spiralled out of control. The WSJ says the proposal is backed by several big-money investors, and that means two
Read more on pcgamer.com
