Whether Musk has a real desire to run OpenAI or get ahead of a competitor, observers agree the bid is likely to slow down the artificial intelligence (AI) firm’s plans to change its corporate structure.
Musk, an original co-founder of OpenAI, has taken great issue with the company’s for-profit ambitions, so his bid to throw a wrench in their plans was not a surprise for some in the industry.
“The only way to stop OpenAI is [by] making their life, their fundraising more complicated,” said Lutz Finger, the founder of generative AI eCommerce company R2Decide.
A consortium of investors led by Musk submitted a $97.4 billion bid to buy the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI earlier this week. Altman quickly pushed back, stating OpenAI is “not for sale.”
OpenAI’s board of directors unanimously rejected Musk’s bid, OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor said in a post on X on Friday afternoon.
"OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” Taylor said. “Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity.”
Musk has not explicitly stated his intentions behind going after OpenAI but in a statement shared with The Hill said it is “time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety focused force for good it once was.”
While Musk says he wants OpenAI to focus on safety and open-source AI models, various technology observers suggested there is more to the picture.
The bid’s timing comes just days after reports circulated that SoftBank was close to finalizing a $40 billion deal with OpenAI that would bring the ChatGPT maker to a $300 billion valuation, nearly double its current value.
By submitting an unsolicited bid for the nonprofit arm of OpenAI, Musk is informally setting a floor value that may be far higher than the valuation of the nonprofit’s subsidiaries.
“Now, when they [OpenAI] want to split up the for-profit and nonprofit, the state will come and ask, how much is the nonprofit worth and how much is the other profit worth?” Finger explained. “And by putting up this evaluation, Musk makes investing in OpenAI expensive.”
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com this weekend.
