Elon Musk's group makes leading $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI

A group of investors led by Elon Musk on Monday made a daunting $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI to the company's board of directors, upping his competition with the company's CEO Sam Altman.

Musk is a co-founder of OpenAI, which was created as a charity with Altman in 2015. The billionaire left the company in 2019, but has since expressed interest in returning, per the Wall Street Journal.

The new offer puts a dent in Altman's plans for the company behind ChatGPT, which includes converting it to a for-profit company and spending up to half a trillion dollars on AI infrastructure.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement through his attorney Marc Toberoff. “We will make sure that happens.”

Altman appeared to discourage Musk's potential acquisition, but joked that he would buy the billionaire's social media platform X for the same amount.

Musk's offer is supported by Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, and venture firm 8VC, which is led by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.

Toberoff claimed that Musk and the group are also comfortable in exceeding any bids that are higher than theirs.

“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time," Toberoff said.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.