Sam Altman Refuses $97.4 Billion Offer From Elon Musk For OpenAI

Elon Musk, who was one of the early investors in OpenAI, left the board in 2018 due to disagreements and has now extended an offer of $97.4 billion to acquire the parent company of OpenAI.

Musk and Altman

Elon Musk and Sam Altman together founded OpenAI in 2015. However, as differences arose between the two over leadership, Musk was eventually pushed out in 2019. Musk, who had invested nearly $42 million by this point, took Altman and the board to court, accusing that the company had deviated from its original mission.

For-profit

OpenAI was initially founded as a non-profit but later by 2019 had created a for-profit entity. Musk alleged in the California federal court that making OpenAI a completely for-profit company goes against the foundational values of the company.

OpenAI, which aims to completely transition to for-profit by 2026 responded in court by showing emails from Musk which made it clear that he was more than happy to abandon the non-profit nature of the company before his exit.

Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, told Forbes that if Altman and OpenAI’s board move forward with the transition, the nonprofit should be fairly compensated for losing control over such a transformative technology. In a statement to Forbes via Toberoff, Musk said, “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”

$97.4 Billion Offer

Elon Musk’s AI company xAI has extended an offer of $97.4 billion to acquire OpenAI. The offer includes other investment partners including Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, and Vy Capital.
no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 10, 2025

 While the company officially has not responded yet, Sam Altman took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to give a cheeky reply to an article by WSJ. Altman tweets “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk later replied to Altman’s tweet, calling him a “Swindler.”

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