Elon Musk, along with a group of investors, has made a $97.4 billion deal to take full control of OpenAI.
Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, confirmed that the bid was submitted to OpenAI’s board on Monday, with the intention of purchasing all of the company’s assets.
In a statement, Mr Toberoff stated that the group of investors is willing to consider increasing their offer if another party submits a higher bid for OpenAI.
"As the co-founder of OpenAI and the most innovative and successful tech industry leader in history, Musk is the person best positioned to protect and grow OpenAI's technology," he added.
Earlier, Musk said in a statement, noting, "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’s comment on X (formerly Twitter) serves as a subtle jab by flipping the situation around.
Instead of directly rejecting Musk’s bid, he uses humour to downplay the seriousness of Musk’s offer saying, "no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."
Tesla's CEO was one of the founder of OpenAI, alongside Altman but Musk left the company before it gained success.
OpenAI originally started as a non-profit organization but now it is moving towards becoming a for-profit company.
OpenAI explains that this shift is necessary in order to secure funding needed to develop advanced AI models.
Not only that, OpenAI is joining forces with Oracle, a Japanese investment firm and a wealth fund from the UAE.
Together they plan to invest $500 billion to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.
