Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has made a $97.4 billion bid to take over OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. However, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has swiftly rejected the offer, saying “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want” on Musk’s social media platform X.
Gatekeepers News reports that Musk’s bid is the latest development in a long-standing feud between him and Altman over the future of OpenAI.
Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a non-profit company, but the two have since fallen out. Altman is currently restructuring OpenAI to become a for-profit entity, a move that Musk argues goes against the company’s founding mission.
Musk claims that his bid is motivated by a desire to return OpenAI to its original mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity. “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens,” he said in a statement.
However, not everyone is convinced by Musk’s motives. Christie Pitts, a tech investor, expressed scepticism about the bid, saying “I think it’s fair to be pretty suspicious of this considering that he has a competitor himself… which is structured as a for-profit company.”
The bid is significantly lower than OpenAI’s current valuation, which is reportedly around $300 billion. Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, said that the consortium is prepared to consider matching or exceeding any potential higher bid.
