How Elon Musk $97.4 billion bid complicates matters for OpenAI

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has dismissed a $97.4 billion takeover bid led by rival Elon Musk, but the unsolicited offer could complicate Altman's push to transform the maker of ChatGPT into a for-profit company. Their public feud has escalated over the past year as Musk sued OpenAI and is working to grow his own AI company called xAI, part of a business empire that includes Tesla, SpaceX and social media platform X. Musk also now holds power as a top adviser to President Donald Trump in reshaping the U.S. government, and has publicly questioned OpenAI’s Trump-backed private investment project for building AI data centers in the United States. OpenAI's nonprofit complications OpenAI’s nonprofit purpose, as defined most recently in 2020, is “ ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity, including by conducting and/or funding artificial intelligence research.” The question is, can it do that if it sells its assets and loses control of the company developing this technology? Musk attorney Marc Toberoff said in a statement that if Altman and OpenAI’s current board “are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time.” Altman has sought to characterize Musk's tactics as those of a competitor trying to catch up.