A group of investors led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made a $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in an effort to restore the company’s original non-profit mission.
The proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, aims to purchase all of OpenAI’s assets and redirect the organization toward its founding principles.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 as a non-profit, left in 2019. Since then, tensions between the two have escalated into a legal dispute over the company’s transformation into a for-profit entity under Altman’s leadership.
Altman, now OpenAI’s CEO, rejected the takeover offer in a post on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74bn if you want.”
Musk, who acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion and rebranded it as X, fired back by calling Altman a “swindler.”
The billionaire later shared a video explaining his opposition to OpenAI’s current trajectory, accusing Altman of profiting from a venture that was initially meant to be non-profit.
“He claimed not to be getting rich, but he has made billions. He has claimed many false things,” Musk said. “Apparently, he’s getting $10 billion in stock. I don’t trust him, and I don’t think we want the most powerful AI in the world controlled by someone who is not trustworthy.”
Musk has long criticized OpenAI’s shift toward commercialization, arguing that it contradicts the company’s original vision of an open and ethical approach to artificial intelligence.
