Elon Musk launches $97bn bid to buy ChatGPT-maker OpenAI

Elon Musk co-founded the ChatGPT maker with Sam Altman in 2015 – but relations between the pair have soured and they are already locked in a legal battle over OpenAI.

A group led by Elon Musk has made a $97.4bn (£78.7bn) bid to buy OpenAI just months after the X owner sued the artificial intelligence start-up.

Mr Musk co-founded OpenAI with its current chief executive Sam Altman in 2015, but left before the company took off after it released ChatGPT in late 2022.

Initially launched as a non-profit, OpenAI is currently transitioning to a for-profit model – which it says it needs to do so it can afford to develop the best AI models.

Mr Musk disagrees with the move and said in a press release about the bid: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.

“We will make sure that happens.”

The offer is being backed by Mr Musk’s rival artificial intelligence company xAI, which could merge with OpenAI following a deal, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the bid.

The offer relates only to the non-profit that controls the company rather than the whole OpenAI operation.

OpenAI was valued at $157bn (£127bn) in its latest funding round in October last year. A deal of this size would require the investing group to raise enormous funds.

Mr Musk’s offer appears to have escalated longstanding tensions with his former colleague Mr Altman, who posted on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Image:Under Sam Altman’s leadership, OpenAI is pivoting to a for-profit model. Pic: AP

Mr Musk bought Twitter, now called X, for $44bn (£38bn) in 2022.

The pair publicly fell out when Mr Musk resigned from the OpenAI board in 2018.

They are already embroiled in a lawsuit as Mr Musk sued both OpenAI and Mr Altman last year, accusing them of breaching a contract by pivoting towards profit, arguing OpenAI was going back on its pledge to develop AI carefully and make it freely available.

Mr Musk and OpenAI lawyers faced off in a California federal court last week as a judge weighed up whether to back the X owner’s request for a court order that would block the company from becoming a for-profit entity.

US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has not yet ruled on the request but said she would not stop the case from moving to a jury trial.