The name of the famous and controversial billionaire Elon Musk has returned to the business and stock markets, not because of his “innovative” new job in the US administration, but rather because of a new controversy that brought to mind the controversy surrounding his purchase of the famous Twitter application (which later changed its name to X).
The hero of this new episode in this controversy is the famous company “OpenAI”, the owner of the “ChatGPT” application, which witnessed the artificial intelligence revolution being brought to users’ hands.
Musk, who is also an investor, wants to buy OpenAI and has therefore explored numerous opportunities, from lawsuits to live shows.
How did the company’s owner respond, and why is the financial community interested in the matter?
In a post on his X account (owned by Musk), Sam Altman, CEO of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, responded to American billionaire Elon Musk regarding his offer to buy the company, saying, “No, thanks, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Altman’s post came after he told his employees that Musk’s acquisition offer was a move “to try to undermine us because we’re making a lot of progress.”
An investor group led by Elon Musk has made a $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit foundation that sponsors OpenAI, further exacerbating the already troubled relationship between OpenAI owner Altman and Musk, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Musk’s attorney, Mark Toberoff, said he had submitted an offer for all of the nonprofit’s assets to OpenAI’s board of directors, and that the offer was supported by Musk’s artificial intelligence company, XAI, as well as several prominent investors.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk’s offer hampers Altman’s ambitions, as he seeks to turn OpenAI into a profitable company and spend up to $500 billion on AI infrastructure through his partnership with a venture called Stargate.
“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the force it once was: a safety-focused, open-source force for good, and we will make sure that happens,” Musk said in a statement provided by his attorney, Toberoff.
Project Stargate is a plan Altman and other businessmen announced when Donald Trump took office, calling for $500 billion to be invested over the next four years in US data centers.
Musk’s absence from the announcement, made at the White House, was conspicuous, despite his strong relationship with Trump.
“I feel sorry for the guy. I don’t think he’s a happy person.”
Returning to the recent controversy on the subject, Altman told Bloomberg in an interview during the Paris AI Summit on Tuesday, “Elon has been trying to do this for a long time.
This latest acquisition offer is just the latest of these attempts this week, and you know, I think he’s just trying to slow us down.”
“I hope Musk competes by building a better product rather than trying to buy competitors, but I think there have been a lot of those tactics.
There have been a lot of lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy things he’s done, and now this show. But we’re just going to try to stay focused and keep going,” he added.
Altman was asked in the interview if Musk was doing these things because he was afraid of OpenAI’s expansion, and he agreed, saying, “Maybe his whole life has been about insecurity.
I feel sorry for the guy. I don’t think he’s a happy person. I feel for him.”
Musk sues OpenAI over claims it’s nonprofit status
Musk was a member of the board of directors of OpenAI, which was founded as a charitable organization in 2015, but left in 2019 due to disagreements with the other founders over the company’s direction and funding sources. Altman became its CEO.
The war between the two sides officially began in June 2024, when Musk first sued OpenAI, accusing it of wrongfully seeking profits.
He dropped the lawsuit after the company released several of Musk’s emails from OpenAI’s early days, showing Musk’s insistence on the company’s need to raise significant amounts of money to fund the computing resources needed to power its AI ambitions.
In August 2024, Musk filed a second lawsuit accusing OpenAI of racing to develop powerful “artificial general intelligence” technology to “maximize profits” and of extortion.
It is also noteworthy that before the lawsuits erupted between the two parties, Musk launched his own artificial intelligence company, XAI, in 2023.
OpenAI faced numerous hurdles in transforming its nonprofit into a for-profit company. It needed to raise $40 billion for the transformation, the capital needed to develop advanced AI models.
This complex process included determining the value of the nonprofit’s control over the for-profit arm.