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Elon Musk and a consortium of investors have offered to buy out ChatGPT-maker for US$97 billion.
A consortium of investment and venture capital firms led by Elon Musk has made a US$97.4 billion buyout offer for the creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI.
The move comes as Musk and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman continue their legal battle over the future of the company – which Musk co-founded before going on to create his own AI company, x.AI.
Altman wishes to turn the company into a for-profit entity, while the consortium wishes to keep the platform as a “charitable mission”.
“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. board of directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” Marc Toberoff, the consortium’s attorney, said in a widely reported statement.
“As the co-founder of OpenAI and the most innovative and successful tech industry leader in history, Musk is the person best positioned to protect and grow OpenAI’s technology.”
Musk himself has also commented on the buyout bid.
“At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators,” Musk 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.”
In a post on X made on 11 February, Altman made a likely tongue-in-cheek counteroffer.
“No thank you but we will buy twitter for [US]$9.74 billion if you want,” Altman said.
Musk’s x.AI is part of the consortium, as are Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, and 8VC, alongside Hollywood CEO Ari Emanuel via his private investment fund.
The buyout bid was submitted to OpenAI’s board of directors on 10 February.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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