Elon Musk says he’ll withdraw his $97 billion bid for control of Sam Altman’s OpenAI— only if Altman agrees to halt the transition to a for-profit enterprise.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and some investors made an unsolicited $97.4 billion “cash” bid for the nonprofit that controls OpenAI on Monday. But in a new tit for tat, he claims he’ll withdraw the offer if the ChatGPT maker stops its transition to a for-profit enterprise.
Altman flatly rebuffed the offer on X, the social media platform that was once Twitter before Musk bought it. Altman wrote: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk then called Altman a “swindler.”
Altman later said, “probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity, I feel for the guy,” referring to Musk, when asked if the offer was made out of uncertainty in his own artificial intelligence venture xAI.“I don’t think he’s, like, a happy person,” Altman said. “I feel for him.”
President Donald Trump’s $500 billion “Stargate” AI infrastructure project enlisted OpenAI as a key partner rather than Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI despite the relationship between Musk and Trump. Musk bashed the project, and Trump claimed, “he hates one of the people in the deal.
Source: FORTUNE