Elon Musk has said he will abandon his billion-dollar offer to buy artificial intelligence company OpenAI on one condition.
Earlier this week, the Tesla owner and a group of investors made an offer of $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI.
However, Altman gave a savage response on X to Musk’s bid, rejecting it altogether. He also told questioners at a Paris summit on AI that the company is ‘not for sale.’ If anything, the offer has escalated the already heated tensions between Musk and OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman.
The SpaceX owner helped found the AI company over a decade ago but left due to a power struggle.
Now, the tech billionaire has agreed to drop his bid if OpenAI agrees to ‘preserve its mission’ and remain a nonprofit organisation.
In legal documents filed on Wednesday, Musk’s lawyers stated that if OpenAI’s board stops its corporate restructuring, he will withdraw his bid.
Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty
“If OpenAI Inc.’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” the court filing said.
“Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”
OpenAI started as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the public good, but it has gradually shifted toward a more corporate structure.
Musk founded his AI company xAI in 2023, along with a group of investors. As such, he and his lawyers argue that OpenAI should go back to its original model of being a nonprofit research lab.
If that happened, it would no longer be a business competitor to xAI, which recently secured $6 billion in funding.
The Musk-Altman feud has been going on for many years. While they co-founded OpenAI in 2015, their relationship soured over disagreements about the company’s direction, particularly whether it should be run for profit.
JOEL SAGET / Contributor / Getty
Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018, and since then, things have only gotten messier.
The world’s richest man took another shot at Altman’s leadership on Thursday during a video call at the World Government Summit in Dubai. He compared it to a non-profit dedicated to protecting the Amazon rainforest which became a ‘lumber company that chops down the trees.’
“OpenAI is meant to be [an] open-source nonprofit, and now it is closed,” Musk said at the Summit. “They changed the name to closed for maximum profit, AI closed for voracious profit.”
Altman has previously said Musk is an ‘unhappy’ person motivated by ‘insecurity.’
Meanwhile, Musk has called out the CEO on social media calling him ‘Scam Altman.’
Featured Image Credit: CHIP SOMODEVILLA / Contributor / Getty
Sam Altman posts savage response to Elon Musk’s $97,000,000,000 bid to buy OpenAI
Altman quickly dismissed the billion-dollar bid
Elon Musk has tried to buy OpenAI for nearly $100 billion and CEO Sam Altman had the perfect comeback for him.
Altman reportedly declared that the OpenAI board offered $97.4 billion bid by the Tesla CEO and a group of investors to take over the AI company.
“It is time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Marc Toberoff, an attorney representing the investors, told The Wall Street Journal. “We will make sure that happens.”
However, according to the Information, the AI founder dismissed the offer pretty quickly, informing staff in a memo that the company had no interest in the ‘supposed bid’.
And instead of just rejecting the offer, he threw some online shade.
“no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Altman indirectly shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday (10 February).
no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want
It seems Altman isn’t easily swayed by Musk’s billion-dollar offer.
Shortly after he shared his post, Musk fired back at Altman, calling him a ‘swindler.’
Viewers were loving the drama on the social forum yesterday.
Some people attached laughing and popcorn-eating gifs, adding comments like: “another saga,” “Savage!” and “lol
Never leaving this app”.
Others were loving the fact Altman referred to the platform as ‘Twitter’ replying with: “Still calling it Twitter. Respect” and “Excellent. Also please continue to call it twitter. Most of the rest of us do.”
This latest clash is just another round in the ongoing feud between the co-founders of OpenAI.
Musk helped found the AI company in 2015 when it was created as a nonprofit to ensure that AI would benefit all humanity.
However, the company began to shift towards a commercial purpose and the SpaceX founder left the company in 2018 due a power struggle.
Tomohiro Ohsumi / Stringer/Getty
In 2022, OpenAI became one of the most well-funded machine-learning startups globally with with the release of its popular chatbot, ChatGPT. By 2023, it had secured over $12 billion in investments. Now, with the latest investment funds and backing from software giant Microsoft, the company is worth a whopping $157 billion.
Musk, on the other hand, became highly critical of OpenAI’s direction and even filed several lawsuits against the company last year, claiming it betrayed its original mission and violated licensing agreements.
The tech mogul launched his own AI company called xAI as a direct competitor of OpenAI. However, if the bid was to have been accepted, it could put Musk as a major player in the AI industry (if he wasn’t already).
Featured Image Credit: Sean Gallup / Staff / Getty
Sam Altman humbles Elon Musk in brutal new interview following $97,000,000,000 bid to buy OpenAI
Altman has reasserted that OpenAI is ‘not for sale’
Sam Altman has humbled long time rival Elon Musk in a recent interview following reports that the latter has led a $97,000,000,000 bid to purchase OpenAI, and many consider Altman’s assessments to be brutally honest.
The feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman stretches nearly a decade, and continues to spark flames arguably more than ever due to their close proximity at the top of the AI food chain.
Beginning initially as friends and co-founders of OpenAI with the mission to better humanity instead of a desire for profits, the pair shortly fell out a few years later after Musk reportedly attempted to wrestle control of the company and push towards a for-profit model.
In the years following Musk have levied several lawsuits against OpenAI and its CEO Altman, including accusations of profiteering and engaging in monopolization practices.
Things have especially come to a head after Musk led a consortium bid to purchase OpenAI, with a figure of $97 billion floating around which Altman firmly rejected, adding his own counter offer for X at a tenth of the price.
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is “not for sale” and Elon Musk is probably trying to delay its progress with an unsolicited bid for the AI firm trib.al/TzmIsve
Altman has continued to push back in the war though, offering honest and humbling assessments of Musk in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
In reference to the seriousness of Musk’s attempts to purchase OpenAI, Altman argued: “I think he’s probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor. He’s working hard and he’s raised a lot of money for xAI, and they’re trying to compete with us from a technological perspective.
“From, you know, getting the product into the market, and I wish he would just compete by building a better product.”
Unfortunately for Musk, that was just the beginning of Altman’s savage takedown, and the worst was still yet to come. When asked about whether Musk’s approach signaled a feeling of insecurity about xAI, Altman assessed:
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy, I do, actually. I don’t think he’s like a happy person. I do feel for him.”
Ouch.
Capping it all off, Altman outlines that he’s “not particularly” worried about Musk’s prominent position in government when it comes to the disruptive power he might hold. “Maybe I should be,” he wonders, but settles on not letting it bother him.
Altman appears relatively unbothered by Musk’s agitation, and expresses that he ‘feels’ for him (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
“I mean, I just try to wake up and think about how we’re going to make our technology better,” declares Altman, which feels very much like a ‘I don’t think about you at all’ moment when placed next to Musk.
This isn’t the first time that Altman has expressed similar feelings in reference to competition, as he recently used the meteoric rise of Chinese ChatGPT rival DeepSeek as a means to push OpenAI further, illustrating that “it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor” that drives innovation.
Altman would argue that he’s simply living his childhood dream, supported by his miniscule monetary ties to OpenAI, indicating that he’s truly in it for the love of the game.
Featured Image Credit: JOEL SAGET / Contributor / Getty
Elon Musk issues one-word reply to Sam Altman’s $9,740,000,000 counter offer to ‘buy Twitter’
The tech moguls could see their longstanding feud end up in court
Elon Musk has issued a one-word reply to Sam Altman’s $9.74 billion counter offer to ‘buy Twitter’.
The tech moguls are beefing after Musk made Altman an offer to purchase OpenAI.
However, the feud goes back much longer after the pair co-founded the firm back in 2015, but Musk left before ChatGPT took off in 2022.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman have a longstanding feud (Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
While OpenAI was first launched as a non-profit, it is currently transitioning over to a for-profit model, something that Musk is firmly against.
He previously said: “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.”
Last October, OpenAI was valued at $157 billion, but the Tesla boss has offered to buy the company for $97.4 billion.
And it doesn’t seem to have impressed Altman, who took to Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to respond.
He said: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk, who bought Twitter back in 2022 for $44 billion, was quick to fire back, calling Altman a ‘swindler’.
It doesn’t seem like the pair’s feud is going to slow down anytime soon after Musk sued both OpenAI and Altman in 2024.
In the lawsuit, Musk accused them of going back on promises to develop AI carefully and make it freely available.
no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want
He also claimed that they were breaching a contract by making the move towards profit.
The request by Musk for a court order to block OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company has not yet been ruled on by a judge.
However, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has said that she would not block the case from going to a jury trial.
The SpaceX CEO launched xAI as a direct rival to OpenAI in March 2023.
He’s also been critical of the $500 billion OpenAI-led project that was announced by Trump at the White House.
The aim for the project is to fund infrastructure for artificial intelligence in order to beat rival nations in the development of AI technology.
Trump revealed that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle would create a joint venture called Stargate.
As Stargate, the group intends to build data centers, which will also create more than 100,000 jobs in the US.
While Musk isn’t a fan of the idea, it doesn’t seem to have caused any rift between him and Trump, after he took on the role of head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Featured Image Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair
Elon Musk shades OpenAI CEO over their new $500,000,000,000 project
The two are firing shots on X
Elon Musk and Sam Altman reignited their feud on social media after the announcement of OpenAI’s $500 billion project.
Altman took centre stage at the White House on Tuesday to unveil ‘Stargate’ AI infrastructure project. He appeared alongside Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son.
Starting with a $100 billion investment, the project plans to build advanced data centres in Texas to power advanced AI systems.
The initiative was praised by President Trump as a major boost for America’s technological future and ‘a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential.’
However, the Tesla CEO wasted no time throwing shade.
“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on X, responding to OpenAI’s post. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty
But the OpenAI CEO wasn’t having it and fired back.
“Wrong, as you surely know,” Altman said. “Want to come visit the first site already under way?”
He continued: “This is great for the country. I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.”
A source close to Softbank pushed back on Musk’s claims, pointing out the company’s $24 billion in cash and $140 billion in liquid securities as of last September.
The argument is just the latest episode in the long-running rivalry between Musk and Altman. Both lead major AI companies and are competing to shape the future of AI regulation in the US.
Their history dates back to 2015 when Musk – who co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 – fell out with its leadership over disagreements about its direction.
The Washington Post / Contributor / Getty
Musk’s close relationship with Trump and his role as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has only added fuel to the fire.
Asked last month about Musk’s powerful influence, Altman said it “would be profoundly un-American to use political power, to the degree that Elon has it, to hurt your competitors and advantage your own businesses.”
Meanwhile, Altman made a point to praise Trump at the White House event. He claimed that the three companies ‘wouldn’t be able to do this without you.’
He described Stargate as a transformative project that could ‘create hundreds of thousands of jobs’ in the US.
“We will see diseases get cured at an unprecedented rate. We will be amazed at how quickly we’re curing this cancer and that one — and heart disease,” said the ChatGPT creator.
Meanwhile, Musk is suing Altman, OpenAI, Microsoft and billionaire Reid Hoffman in a bid to stop OpenAI’s transition into a for-profit company.
Musk recently scored a key win in the legal battle, with the Justice Department and FTC siding with one of his key arguments, The Post reported.
