A group of investors led by Elon Musk made an offer of $ 97.4 billion to buy the assets of the non -profit organization which controls Openai, according to two people familiar with the offer, the escalation of A deep, deeply personal struggle for the future of artificial intelligence between M. CEO of Musk and Openai, Sam Altman.
The consortium includes Vy Capital and Xai, Mr. Musk’s artificial intelligence company, as well as the broker at Hollywood Power Ari Emanuel and other investors, said that people, who spoke under the cover of anonymity because discussions are underway.
The Wall Street Journal Previously, the news reported the offer.
Openai’s offer is the most recent and perhaps the most daring attack by Mr. Musk against an organization he helped to create almost 10 years ago. He faces long chances: The Board of Directors of Openai is closely allied with Mr. Altman, and the director general quickly made fun of Mr. Musk’s offer.
“No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $ 9.74 billion if you wish,” Altman said on X, referring to the old name of Mr. Musk’s social media platform.
“Swindler,” replied Mr. Musk.
Openai has not yet seen the offer, according to a person familiar with the potential response of Openai. Mr. Musk’s unsolicited offer could complicate Openai’s attempt to finish A 40 billion dollars fund collection agreement which would almost double the assessment of the high -level company only four months ago.
The new round of funds, Directed by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBankThe values open at $ 300 billion, according to three people knowing the agreement that spoke under the guise of anonymity. The agreement would operate one of the most precious private companies in the world, as well as the rocket company of M. Musk, SpaceX, and Bytedance, the manufacturer of Tiktok.
SoftBank would invest up to $ 40 billion in Openai, other investors providing approximately a quarter of total funds, people said. (The New York Times has heard OPENAI and its partner, Microsoft, affirming the copyright violation of news content linked to AI systems. The two companies have denied complaints from the prosecution.)
Mr. Musk’s offer could slow down a business transition on which Mr. Altman and other Openai leaders have been working for over a year.
Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman and several other entrepreneurs and researchers founded Openai as a non -profit organization at the end of 2015, saying that they wanted to freely share their technologies with the world. When Mr. Musk left the organization three years later after a battle for control, Mr. Altman attached Openai to a for -profit company so that he could collect the enormous sums necessary to build AI technologies.
But the non -profit board of directors, in an unusual arrangement, continued to control Openai. At the end of 2023, the board of directors suddenly dismissed Mr. Altman, saying that he no longer trusted him to build AI for the benefit of humanity – one of the original principles of the non -profit organization . But the eviction only lasted five days.
After his return, Mr. Altman and his colleagues began to explore ways to break the business control by the non -profit organization. He also started stacking Openai’s painting with his allies, offering a rampart against other efforts to ensure control.
The structure of Openai is remarkably complex – and Mr. Musk’s offer shows that he includes his weak points. In order to separate from the Board of Directors for non -profit, Mr. Altman and his colleagues must compensate him: Openai could pay the non -profit organization unique costs, for example, or give it a minority participation in the company.
While Openai has more than 2,000 employees, the non -profit organization which controls has only two employees and $ 22 million in cash and other assets. The reason why Mr. Musk and his investors would pay billions for this is that he has legal control over Openai.
But the assets of the non -profit organization have not received any value – and this is what Mr. Musk tries to establish with his new offer. Its offer could mean that OpenAi’s for profit arm should spend more to obtain the independence of the non -profit organization.
“If Sam Altman and the current Board of Directors of Openai Inc. intend to become a fully for profit company, it is essential that the charitable organization is quite compensated for for what its leadership removes it: Control of the most transforming technology of our time, “said a lawyer in Los Angeles last year who filed a complaint against Openai on behalf of Mr. Musk, in a statement.
OPENAI’s non -profit organization has a duty to sell its assets to a fair market value, said Ellen P. APRILL, a principal researcher studying non -profit law at the University of California in Los Angeles , who wrote a lot on Openai. Mr. Musk’s offer now seems to put this very high value, she said. If the non-profit organization accepted a lower price of the OpenAi lucrative arm, it may have to explain to the charitable organizations of the United States why it refused a higher offer.
“This is a huge complication for the current plan,” she added.
The proposal to move the assets of OpenAi from the non -profit organization to the for -profit organization is already under the control of state charity regulators in Delaware, where Openai is incorporated, and in California, where The company has its registered office.
Mr. Musk, now one of President Trump’s closest advisers, created his own AI business In 2023 to compete with Openai. While this company, XAI, slowly played a catch-up with a range of start-ups and giants of AI technology, Mr. Altman was able to exceed Mr. Musk in Washington.
The day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, He supported a plan By Openai, SoftBank and the Oracle software company to spend $ 100 billion for new data centers. Trump described the effort as “the biggest Infrastructure project in AI from afar in history”.
Musk’s letter of tender on Monday was sent, Mr. Altman was at A conference AI in Paris assisted by other technological and political leadersIncluding Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and the vice-president JD Vance.