Elon Musk-led group of investors bid $97bn for ChatGPT maker OpenAI
Tesla owner, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, says he wants to restore company to original charitable mission as non-profit research lab
A group of investors led by Elon Musk has said it is offering more than $97bn dollars (£78.3bn) to buy OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
Musk and his own AI start-up, xAI, along with a consortium of investment firms, say they want to buy OpenAI and revert it back to its original charitable mission as a non-profit research lab, according to Musk lawyer Marc Toberoff.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman quickly rejected the deal on Musk’s social media platform X, saying “no thank you but we will buy twitter for 9.74 billion if you want”.
Musk bought Twitter, now called X, for $44bn in 2022.
Musk and Altman, who together helped start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it, have been in a long-running feud over the start-up’s direction since Musk resigned from its board in 2018.
Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a non-profit research lab benefiting the public good.
OpenAI has argued that it needs to become a for-profit company in order to generate the funds needed to pay for the development of more advanced AI models.
Musk had invested about $45m (£36m) in the start-up from its founding until 2018, Toberoff said in court last week.
Musk and OpenAI lawyers faced off in a California federal court last week as a judge weighed up Musk’s request for a court order that would block the ChatGPT-maker from converting itself to a for-profit company.
US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has not yet ruled on Musk’s request but in court said it was a “stretch” for Musk to claim he will be irreparably harmed if she does not intervene to stop OpenAI from moving forward with its planned transition towards becoming a for-profit corporation.
But the judge also raised concerns about OpenAI and its relationship with business partner Microsoft and said she would not stop the case from moving to trial as soon as next year so a jury can decide.
“It is plausible that what Mr Musk is saying is true. We’ll find out. He’ll sit on the stand,” she said.
Along with Musk and xAI, others backing the bid include Baron Capital Group, Valor Management, Atreides Management, Vy Fund and Eight Partners VC.
Toberoff said in a statement that if Altman and OpenAI’s current board “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 added that Musk, as an OpenAI co-founder and successful tech leader, “is the person best positioned to protect and grow OpenAI’s technology”.
Additional reporting by AP
