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.
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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