Highlights.
- A group led by Elon Musk has made an effort to acquire ChatGPT-owner, OpenAI, for a whopping sum of $97.4 billion.
- OpenAI was co-founded by Elon Musk, along with its current chief executive, Sam Altman, in 2015.
- Launched initially as a non-profit, Musk disagrees with Altman’s plans to transition the company into a for-profit model.
OpenAI has played a crucial role in bringing artificial intelligence tools into the mainstream, and along with it has generated large quantities of investments in the sector. The company was co-founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman back in 2015 as a non-profit startup, but since then, the relationship between the two has soured, prompting the Tesla boss to part ways in 2018.
Now, Chief Executive Altman has made plans to transition the company into a for-profit model, claiming that it needs to be done so it can afford to develop the best AI models. Mr Musk disagrees, stating in a press release that, “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.”
X boss offers almost $100 billion to acquire OpenAI.
Elon Musk, backed up by a group of investors, offered to buy ChatGPT maker, OpenAI, for $97.4 billion on the 10th of February, 2025. The sum, however, is far below the most recent valuation of the AI company, at $157 billion. The offer is also being backed by Elon’s rival AI company, xAI, giving rise to controversy that following the acquisition of OpenAI, the two could merge together. Notably, the bid relates only to the non-profit that controls the AI company, rather than the whole operation.
This offer seems to have escalated the already strained tensions between the two tech magnates, prompting Altman to chime in on X (formerly Twitter), stating: “No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” The tweet resulted in Musk commenting on a single word: Swindler.
Reasons for buying OpenAI
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion back in 2022, changing the name to X and bringing a set of changes to the platform. Christie Pitts, a tech investor in new businesses at Panasonic Well in San Francisco seemed to express a level of skepticism about the intentions behind Musk’s bid for OpenAI.
“I think it’s fair to be pretty suspicious of this considering that he has a competitor himself…. which is structured as a for-profit company, so I think there’s more than meets the eye here,” she told BBC.
Musk has also filed multiple lawsuits against Altman and OpenAI, claiming that the company has gone against its founding charter, seeking to make a profit with its AI tools. The latest lawsuit was back in 2024, when Musk yet again accused the company of breaching the contract by prioritizing profit, and not developing AI carefully and making it freely available. The two parties faced off in a California federal court last week, and US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has not yet ruled on the request, but said she would not stop the case from moving to a jury trial.
As the feud between the two giants continues, a new company, called The Stargate Project, was announced at the White House by President Donald Trump. Claiming it to be “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history”, the project would help to keep the future of technology in the US. This project is made possible by OpenAI and Oracle, along with a Japanese investment firm and an Emirati sovereign wealth fund, bringing in a staggering amount of $500 billion for the venture.
Musk, however, despite being Trump’s top advisor, claims that the venture does not “actually have the money”. The disagreement between Musk and Altman has been going on for some time, and how it could possibly end for OpenAI is in the hands of the different shareholders that currently have shares in the company.
