New move: Elon Musk to withdraw bid for OpenAI if its board agrees to terms

Elon Musk is willing to withdraw the $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit on one condition. That the company’s board of directors doesn’t “preserve the charity’s mission” and stops turning it into a for-profit business.

This claim was revealed in a court filing on Wednesday submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The filing asserted that Musk’s offer to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit is serious and that the nonprofit must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.

The filing reads, [if ] “the charity’s assets proceed to sale, a Musk-led consortium has submitted a serious offer […] that would go to the charity in furtherance of its mission.”

[However, if] “OpenAI, Inc.’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid.”

In response, OpenAI’s lawyers argued that Musk’s move to take over the company was an improper bid to undermine a competitor and went against what he said in court. He had said that transferring the startup’s assets through restructuring would go against its purpose as a charitable trust.

Elon Musk saga with OpenAI Sam Altman

OpenAI has been the center of the feud between the two Silicon Valley giants. They founded the company in 2015. Together with others, they raised a billion dollars to launch the company. 

Their mission? To develop advances in neural networks and create the next step in artificial intelligence. This entailed an AI capable of responding to and learning from basic human interaction to perform a wide range of tasks, including creative ones.

Altman suggested that the company remain non-profit. However, Musk was getting more worried about its direction. Just two years later, right before ChatGPT went live, Musk started calling for U.S. politicians to step in and regulate AI. He called it one of the “existential risks” facing humanity.

He also tried to take over the company. But Altman and the other founders turned down his idea. Because of this, Musk left OpenAI in February 2018 and pulled his investment plan.

ChatGPT was launched and did well. In response, In 2023, Musk launched xAI, his own AI company, to compete directly with OpenAI. 

Musk didn’t stop. He sued Altman and OpenAI in March 2024. He claimed that the company had broken its founding principles and turned into a closed-source branch of Microsoft, the biggest tech business. Musk later dropped the lawsuit.

However, in August 2024, he filed a new one, accusing OpenAI of tricking him into helping to start the business. He also said that OpenAI and Microsoft were making a profitable cartel. In reaction, OpenAI filed its complaint. They claimed that Musk was running a campaign to harass people.

Recently, Musk, his AI company xAI, and a group of investors put in an offer of $97.4 billion to buy the charity that runs OpenAI. The plan was quickly turned down by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company’s board. Andy Nussbaum, the lawyer for OpenAI’s board, said that the organization is not for sale.

OpenAI is now in the process of restructuring, this time to a traditional for-profit company, specifically a public benefit corporation. 

In an interview, Altman was asked about Musk’s offer to buy out OpenAI. He laughed and said that it was just Musk’s way of slowing down the company. He also said that Musk does everything in his life “from a position of insecurity.” 

Altman also wrote to Musk on X, “No thank you, [but] we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want” Musk replied one word in response: “Swindler.” From being partners to insulting each other publicly. 

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