OpenAI board rejects Elon Musk-led $97 billion purchase offer
CNN
OpenAI’s board of directors has formally rejected a $97.4 billion bid by Elon Musk and other investors to purchase the company.
OpenAI’s board of directors has formally rejected a $97.4 billion bid by Elon Musk and other investors to purchase the company. “OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” OpenAI Board Chair Bret Taylor said in a statement posted to X on Friday. The statement marks the latest twist in a long-running feud between OpenAI and Musk over the ChatGPT maker’s planned restructuring. OpenAI was founded — by a group that included Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — as a non-profit research lab with a for-profit entity, but it is aiming to restructure in a way that could make fundraising easier and increase returns for investors and employees. Musk has criticized that plan as an abdication of OpenAI’s non-profit mission, and on Monday, a Musk-led group of investors offered to buy the company to return it to an “open-source, safety-focused force.” The bid could have led to a monumental shake-up in the AI industry and made Musk, owner of OpenAI competitor xAI, an even more powerful force in tech. But OpenAI quickly rebuffed the offer, with Altman posting to X on Monday: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Taylor, who also happened to lead the board of X (then Twitter) when Musk began his takeover bid for that company, said in his Friday statement on behalf of OpenAI’s board: “Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure (Artificial General Intelligence) benefits all of humanity.”
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