On Monday, February 10th, a group of investors led by Elon Musk made an offer to purchase OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT for $97.4 billion. OpenAI has two branches, a nonprofit sector and a for-profit sector. This offering was for the nonprofit part of the company.
Is OpenAI Getting Bought Out?
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to the offer on X. Altman wrote, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for 9.74 billion if you want.” Musk then called Altman a “swindler” and called him “Scam Altman.” It’s not hard to see that there certainly is some bad blood between the two. Musk, now an adviser to President Trump, is taking part of a heated legal and public relational battle with both the company and Sam Altman.
Altman and Musk actually worked together at the company, but Musk left, believing that he could do it better on his own. When working at the company, Musk was against the nonprofit sector of the company, and frequently spoke out against it. Musk also said that he doesn’t trust Altman to lead the company that controls the most powerful AI on the planet.
OpenAI is receiving heavy investments from many companies, such as SoftBank. SoftBank is planning on investing $40 billion into the OpenAI, which is now valued at a whopping $260 billion. While there is lots of excitement about the company, Musk isn’t so happy. Musk started his own AI startup, xAI, and is now suing Altman and the rest of his company on the grounds of antitrust violations. If the deal were to occur, it’s likely the OpenAI and xAI would merge into one company. Musk also doubts that OpenAI has the funds to be a part of Stargate. On X, Musk said “They don’t actually have the money… SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
What do you think of this clash between AI leaders? Will one dominate the other, or will they continue to compete head to head? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Featured Image Credit: Andrew Neel; Pexels: Thank You!
