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What just happened? Elon Musk has led a team of investors in making an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI. The move is the latest escalation of Musk’s war with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company is fighting a legal battle against the world’s richest man over its transition from non-profit status. Altman responded to the bid on X by declining and jokingly offering to “buy twitter for $9.74 billion.” Musk responded with “Swindler.”
Musk and the consortium made the $97.4 billion offer to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, writes the Wall Street Journal. The group wants all of OpenAI’s assets, which would include ChatGPT, and is “prepared to consider matching or exceeding higher bids,” it said.
Swindler
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
The group claims a takeover will put OpenAI’s focus back on open-source AI designed to help the world, which was the company’s original goal.
“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk told The Journal via his lawyer, Marc Toberoff. “We will make sure that happens.”
Musk said that X’s Grok AI model was an example of what OpenAI should be doing. “At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow,” the billionaire claimed. “We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators.”
The consortium that made the bid includes Baron Capital Group Inc., Valor Management LLC, Atreides Management, LP, Vy Fund III L.P., Emmanuel Capital Management LLC, and Eight Partners VC LLC. Musk’s own x.AI artificial intelligence company also backed the bid and could end up merging with OpenAI if an offer is accepted.
It’s noted that Musk’s efforts to purchase OpenAI could cause problems for Altman’s efforts to take the company private. The for-profit branch of the firm must purchase the assets of its controlling nonprofit at a fair price. The bid raises the value of those assets, meaning the for-profit business would have to spend more.
Toberoff sent a letter to California’s attorneys general last month asking that they open up bidding for OpenAI to determine the value of its charitable assets. Musk and others believe OpenAI could undervalue the nonprofit once it is spun out.
Musk was quick to criticize Donald Trump’s Stargate project last month. The initiative will see several tech giants, including OpenAI, Oracle, MGX, and SoftBank, invest about $500 billion in building data centers in the US over four years. When OpenAI announced an initial investment of $100 billion, he said “They don’t have the money.”
They don’t actually have the money
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2025
Musk was one of OpenAI’s original co-founders alongside Altman back in 2015. He departed the company three years later over what he said was a conflict of interest with Tesla.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman in 2024 over claims that the pair breached their original contractual agreements by putting profit ahead of developing AI that benefits humanity. He ended the legal challenge a few months later without saying why.
Musk launched another legal battle against OpenAI in November when he filed an injunction against the firm, several of its co-founders, and main investor Microsoft to prevent its transition to a for-profit entity.
It was reported yesterday that Musk was not interested in buying TikTok’s US assets, denying earlier reports.
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