OpenAI was co-founded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015.
An offer of $97.4 billion backed by Elon Musk to take over the non-profit that controls OpenAI has added to the long-standing feud between the Tesla chief and Sam Altman, CEO of the ChatGPT maker, over the future of the start-up they co-founded in 2015.
In a new twist, Altman rejected the offer and made a counteroffer to buy X (formerly Twitter), which Musk acquired and took private in 2022.
"No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want," wrote Altman on social media. Altman's offer to take over X is one-tenth of the price offered by Musk to buy OpenAI. This reflects the company's devaluation.
In 2022, Musk took over X for $44 billion.
Musk was not to stop here. In response, he called Altman a "swindler".
no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 10, 2025
Musk also shared an old video of Altman calling him "Scam Altman". In the video, when Senator Kennedy asks Altman "You make a lot of money, do you?" he responds with a "no".
Scam Altman
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
pic.twitter.com/j9EXIqBZ8u
This is not the first time Musk has raised eyebrows about Altman's financial status. Last month, Donald Trump announced the $500 billion Stargate project - a joint venture between ChatGPT's creator OpenAI, Japanese giant SoftBank, and cloud giant Oracle to build artificial intelligence infrastructure. Soon after Musk said the group didn't have the money.
OpenAI CEO Salm Altman dismissed Musk's claims and instead offered him to visit the first site, which is already underway. He said, "This is great for the country. I realize what is great for the country isn't always what's optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you'll mostly put us first."
SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2025
OpenAI is now trying to transition into a for-profit from a nonprofit entity, which it says is required to secure the capital needed for developing the best artificial intelligence models.
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