Alongside a group of investors, Elon Musk made a $97.4B bid last night to buy the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, according to The Wall Street Journal.
This deeply personal rivalry between Musk and OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, has now taken another turn and looks to be escalating even further as both continue to butt heads over the future of artificial intelligence.
Sam Altman’s Not So “Open” AI
Altman and Musk have long had different opinions on how OpenAI should be handled – so much so that Musk left the company in 2019 and later started his own company, xAI.
Most of this centers around Atlman’s ambitions for OpenAI to become a for-profit company that runs a proprietary model.
Musk helped found OpenAI alongside Altman as a nonprofit in 2015, with the goal of developing AI that helps everyone – from small-scale companies to large ones. But over time, OpenAI have pivoted towards a for-profit model and made deals with the likes of Microsoft to run ChatGPT 4.0 exclusively to them.
A for-profit approach enables OpenAI to scale at large and opens them to more investment from large companies (as seen with Microsoft). The company can also offer higher salaries and stock options, which means that it can poach the best developer talent in the market to enhance their AI capabilities.
Musk has described this as “betraying their original mission” and sued OpenAI over the company’s plan to restructure last year – dropping the suit and later refiling it.
While this is an audacious attempt at control, the motives are clear – Musk wants to reclaim Open AI so he can return it to its “original mission”.
In a statement following the bid, 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.”
Altman took to X to publicly reject Musk’s offer, playfully countering with a joke about acquiring Musk’s own social media company. The X CEO replied, calling Altman a “Swindler”.
Industry leaders, including Altman, were attending the Paris AI summit as the news broke. Altman faced a barrage of questions at the Summit over whether he could still afford OpenAI after Musk’s bid.
Altman said: “The company is not for sale, neither is the mission. The mission is really important, and we’re totally focused on making sure we preserve that.”
Final Thoughts
If this feud has taught us anything, it’s that no amount of money would persuade Altman to sell to Musk. So, is this bid a genuine attempt to reclaim OpenAI, or just a move to provoke Altman and stir media speculation?
The offer appears serious, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Musk likely knew Altman was highly unlikely to accept – unless he knows something that we don’t.
Make sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.
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