Ari Emanuel was one of the backers behind Elon Musk’s $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI — and although the Tesla billionaire has indicated he’ll drop said bid if Sam Altman ditches his plans to make it a for-profit business, the Endeavor CEO still thinks the ChatGPT boss is a “phony” for trying to cheat their original mission in the first place.
“Altman and the charity’s Board he controls are floating and furthering all sorts of miscommunications and misconceptions, so let me be crystal clear: We are not proposing to buy the charity, OpenAI, Inc. We are proposing to buy the charity’s majority share (call it 51%) of Sam and Microsoft’s for-profit OpenAI enterprise,” Emanuel said at the Freakonomics Radio Live show on Thursday. “The charity would get the $97.4 billion.”
“It’s hard to see how that trade determined by Sam on both sides of the negotiating table would further the charity’s ‘mission,’” he continued. “In 2022, Sam made $200 million in revenues, the charity received $44,485. In 2023, $1.6B in revenues, the charity got just $5 million.”
Emanuel concluded his point, noting, “All I say to you is: Sam said that Elon was ‘unhappy as a person.’ Yeah, thank you for your analysis. Elon is unhappy because you’re phony and trying to get away with cheating the charity and its original mission. Elon is not.”
On Tuesday, Altman responded to the Grok chief’s offer, saying he operates from a “position of insecurity.” He further told Bloomberg, “I wish he would just compete by creating a better product.”
The TKO CEO initially backed Musk’s bid through his Emanuel Capital Management private real estate investment firm. However, on Wednesday, the Tesla billionaire said he’d drop the bid if the ChatGPT boss agreed to ditch his plan to leave the nonprofit behind.
“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,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a California court filing. “Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”
