Elon Musk has thrown a huge offer on the table: he’s leading a group of investors willing to buy OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, for $97.4 billion. This move could change the future of artificial intelligence in a big way.
Musk has had his issues with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for a while now. He’s even taken legal action against the company and Altman, accusing them of pretending to be a nonprofit while actually trying to make a profit with their AI tools. Musk argues that OpenAI has strayed from its original mission, which was about helping the public.
OpenAI operates as a nonprofit, but within that structure, there’s also a for-profit company, OpenAI LP. This for-profit part has grown OpenAI from being practically worthless to a company worth around $100 billion in just a few years. Altman is seen as the key person behind that success.
Musk’s big investment could give him control over OpenAI, which competes with his own AI company, X.AI.
Marc Toberoff, a lawyer representing Musk’s group, explained, “If Sam Altman and the OpenAI, Inc. Board of Directors are set on turning OpenAI into a for-profit company, they should pay for what they’re taking away from the nonprofit: control over the world-changing tech that is AI.” He added that Musk’s group would work to bring OpenAI back to its roots of open-source, safety-focused AI development.
Altman was quick to respond with a tweet, writing: “No thanks, but we’ll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk was actually one of OpenAI’s co-founders back in 2015 but left after disagreements over the company’s direction.
OpenAI was created because its founders feared that powerful AI, or artificial general intelligence (AGI), could be dangerous for humanity. They set up a board to oversee the development of any new AI products and made sure the code was available to the public.
But OpenAI now has big investors like Microsoft and Thrive Capital, who expect a return on their money. As a result, OpenAI has been pushing its AI products out faster and faster, which sometimes leads to issues. In the fast-moving world of Silicon Valley, early products don’t always work perfectly, and that can be a problem when AI can create convincing fake conversations and images.
In late 2023, there was a strange drama when the OpenAI board fired Altman, only to bring him back shortly after. Some board members were worried that OpenAI was rushing its products without paying enough attention to safety.
Musk’s legal battle with OpenAI started in June 2024, but he dropped it after OpenAI published some of Musk’s old emails from the company’s early days. The emails seemed to show that Musk had acknowledged OpenAI needed to make money to fund its AI goals, which didn’t exactly match up with his lawsuit, which accused the company of wrongly pursuing profits.
Musk then filed a new lawsuit in August 2024, claiming OpenAI was pushing ahead with AGI tech too quickly just to make money. He also accused them of racketeering.
OpenAI, on the other hand, says Musk is essentially being jealous that he’s no longer involved with the company after he left in 2018. Musk had tried to convince the other co-founders to let Tesla buy OpenAI back then, but it didn’t happen.
