Elon Musk Makes $97.4 Billion Bid to Buy OpenAI

Elon Musk has made a $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, in a move that could shake up the AI industry.

A consortium of investors, led by Elon Musk, has made an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to OpenAI’s board of directors for “all assets” of the start-up behind ChatGPT and DALL-E.

Marc Toberoff, Musk’s attorney, confirms that the proposal was formally submitted to OpenAI’s board on Monday. He also states that Musk’s group of investors is prepared to match or go higher than any competing offers that may emerge.

First reported by The Wall Street Journal, Musk’s move complicates OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s ongoing efforts to restructure the start-up away from its original non-profit status and convert it to a for-profit company.

Musk co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman and other researchers and entrepreneurs in 2015 with the mission of freely sharing AI technologies with the world.

When Musk left OpenAI three years later after a battle for control, Altman attached OpenAI to a for-profit company to raise money, and he is currently in the process of breaking that off into its own company.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk’s offer could disrupt Altman’s plans for OpenAI, since the nonprofit arm will still own a stake in the for-profit company, and Musk’s high valuation set with the offer could mean the nonprofit entity maintains significant control of the new company.

Musk and Altman are already fighting in court over the direction of OpenAI — with the X owner claiming that the company has strayed from the original mission he supported.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk says in a statement provided by Toberoff. “We will make sure that happens.”

Less than an hour after The Wall Street Journal’s report that Musk had submitted an offer to Open AI, Altman took to X saying: “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Musk then responded to Altman’s tweet, calling him a “swindler.”

While he has put in a bid for control of OpenAI, Musk says he has not made a bid for TikTok, the popular video-app that is facing a ban because of national security concerns in the U.S.

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