Elon Musk said he will drop his $97.4 billion bid for the nonprofit controlling OpenAI on one condition: CEO Sam Altman must ditch his plan to convert the company behind ChatGPT into a for-profit business.
“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 on Wednesday. “Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”
Altman’s push to change OpenAI into a for-profit company has been the key issue in his feud with Musk in recent years. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Altman and a handful of other executives, but Musk has vehemently opposed Altman’s plan to shift away from the company’s nonprofit status.
The X and Tesla boss sued Altman and another OpenAI founder last year over the move, saying they “betrayed” OpenAI’s founding principles.
“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement provided to WSJ by his attorney, Marc Toberoff, on Monday. “We will make sure that happens.”
Musk’s $97.4 billion bid — which includes Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel among several investors — puts an expensive speed bump in Altman’s way of converting the company.
Altman swiftly denied the bid on Tuesday, saying, “We’re not for sale.” He also took a little dig at Musk on X, adding, “No thank you … but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” (Musk, of course, bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022.)
But OpenAI’s nonprofit board, not just Altman, will have to consider Musk’s bid. Bret Taylor, the chair of the board, sided with Altman on Tuesday, though, saying, “OpenAI is not for sale” at an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal in Palo Alto; he noted that the bid was “largely a distraction.”
Musk, who stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2018, has been critical of the company as of late.
He joked it should change its name to “ClosedAI” in March 2024 due to its move away from its initial mission: providing open source AI technology that benefits everyone. And last September, the X owner shared his displeasure with OpenAI’s planned business restructuring.
“You can’t just convert a non-profit into a for-profit,” Musk posted. “That is illegal.”
OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary a year after Musk’s departure, allowing it to raise money from Microsoft, its primary backer, and other investors. The company is currently aiming to raise funding at a $340 billion valuation; Bloomberg reported in September that Altman would end up with a 7% equity stake in OpenAI if it becomes a for-profit business, meaning his slice would be worth $23.8 billion at that valuation.
Musk on Wednesday night said the latest version of Grok — X’s AI competitor to ChatGPT — will be released in the next week or two.
