Sam Altman calls Musk's bid attempt to slow down OpenAI

SAN FRANCISCO -- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Tuesday that Musk's bid is "an attempt to slow [OpenAI] down."

A team of investors led by Elon Musk submitted a 97.4-billion-US-dollar bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Altman dismissed Elon Musk's bid for OpenAI's nonprofit, noting that Musk "obviously is a competitor."

"He's raised a lot of money for xAI, and they're trying to compete with us from a technological perspective," Altman added.

He immediately refused Musk's offer for OpenAI's nonprofit in a public post on Monday. "No thank you but we will buy Twitter for 9.74 billion dollars if you want."

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Sam Altman and others but left the company in 2018. The Musk-led team is positioning the move as an effort to refocus OpenAI on open-sourced artificial intelligence (AI).

"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," Musk said in a statement on Monday.

In November 2024, Musk's legal team filed a motion for an injunction as part of a lawsuit against OpenAI, challenging its effort to transition from nonprofit status.

Musk's own AI firm, xAI, is involved in the bid, fueling speculation that a successful acquisition could lead to a merger of the two companies.

Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff said that he had presented the bid to OpenAI's board of directors, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The investor group is "prepared to consider matching or exceeding higher bids," according to a press release.

The consortium includes Baron Capital Group Inc., Valor Management LLC, Atreides Management, LP, Vy Fund III L.P., Emmanuel Capital Management LLC, and Eight Partners VC LLC.

In an interview on Tuesday, Larry Summers, an OpenAI board member, said he hadn't received "any formal communication of any kind outside of media reports."