Elon Musk’s $97 Billion Offer to Buy OpenAI Rejected: What’s Really Going On?

Elon Musk’s bid to take over OpenAI with a whopping $97.4 billion offer was met with a resounding “no” from the company’s board. In fact, they said OpenAI is “not for sale,” and they made it clear that Musk’s latest attempt was more about disrupting the competition than benefiting the future of AI.

The chairman of OpenAI’s board, Bret Taylor, wasted no time rejecting Musk’s offer. According to Taylor, OpenAI has a mission to develop AI that benefits all of humanity—not to line the pockets of investors or shift control to someone with his own ambitions. So, why did Musk make this bid in the first place?

Well, it all starts with the rivalry between Musk and OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. Musk, who was one of the original founders of OpenAI back in 2015, hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with Altman. In fact, Musk walked away from the nonprofit organization back in 2018 after a falling out. Since then, OpenAI has transitioned to a structure that allows it to raise the billions needed for AI development, which includes working with tech giants like Microsoft.

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Recently, Altman and his team have been planning to restructure OpenAI and give more control to investors like Microsoft. Musk’s bid complicated those plans because he was trying to figure out the value of the nonprofit’s assets, which could affect how much money the for-profit arm of OpenAI would need to gain more independence.

Musk, through a lawyer, blasted OpenAI’s board for rejecting his bid. The lawyer, Marc Toberoff, claimed that the board wasn’t being honest about their intentions and was only selling assets at a fraction of what Musk offered. He even questioned whether the move was really in the best interest of the public, as OpenAI has claimed.

Meanwhile, Musk is raising funds for his own AI startup, xAI, which recently saw a jump in its valuation to $75 billion. While Musk deals with his ongoing struggles with OpenAI, he’s also focused on building up xAI, which is developing its own chatbot called Grok.

As the tension builds between Musk, Altman, and OpenAI, it’s clear this rivalry isn’t going away anytime soon. Musk’s offer was only the latest chapter in a long saga that continues to unfold. Whether Musk can make any progress with his own AI ambitions or if OpenAI will stay firmly in control remains to be seen.