‘Why is Musk messing with OpenAI?’ (Image credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
published 27 February 2025
Somehow, in between gutting the federal government and running Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk has found time to launch a $97.4 billion takeover bid for OpenAI, said Kelsey Piper in Vox . That seemingly lowball offer — the ChatGPT-maker is thought to be worth more than $300 billion — was quickly rejected by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week. "No thank you," he wrote on the Musk-owned X platform, formerly Twitter. "But we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."
While Musk’s takeover proposal is likely dead, it could "still have big implications for perhaps the most important company in artificial intelligence," said Piper. That’s because Musk was bidding for the nonprofit entity that controls OpenAI’s for-profit business and which was founded with the mission to "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." Altman is under intense pressure from investors such as Microsoft to convert the entire operation into a for-profit venture , which would let it raise more capital. "The current rumor is that the new for-profit entity would compensate the nonprofit with about $40 billion for its assets." But after Musk’s nearly $100 billion bid, the nonprofit is effectively duty-bound to sell for at least that, making any conversion much more expensive for Altman.
"Why is Musk messing with OpenAI?" asked Lily Jamali in BBC.com . The billionaire has justified his bid by saying that he wants to return the firm — which he co-founded with Altman and others in 2015 — "to its nonprofit roots and original mission." But Musk may have "somewhat less noble motives." Not coincidentally, he owns an artificial intelligence venture, xAI , and may think that his best chance to get ahead is by "kneecapping his most formidable competitor." Subscribe to The Week
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