Elon Musk-led consortium submits $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI but Altman turns it down
Both Musk and Sam Altman are fighting in court over the future direction of OpenAI.
Tesla's chief executive at the U.S. Capitol.
An article recently published exclusively by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Marc Toberoff, an attorney for Elon Musk, presented a buyout offer Monday to OpenAI's board of directors.
Amid the fight between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over OpenAI, and after news of Musk's million-dollar offer became public, Altman jokingly responded on his X account saying "No thanks, but we can buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."
no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 10, 2025
Musk responded to Altman's post directly and called him a "scammer." Then, on his account, he wrote "Never a dull moment on X."
Swindler
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
Never a dull moment on 𝕏
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
The backstory
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The conflict between Elon Musk and Sam Altman mainly revolves around differences over the direction and purpose of creating OpenAl, as it is a company they both founded in 2015.
Originally, the company was founded with the vision that it would be a non-profit organization dedicated to developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the goal that it would be beneficial to humanity.
However, in 2019, OpenAI, changed its structure to a "for-profit" company, something Musk criticized, arguing that such a transformation went against the organization's founding principles.
In 2018, Musk attempted to take control of OpenAI to accelerate development and compete with Google, but his proposal was rejected. This produced the tycoon's departure from the board, increasing tensions between him and Altman, who remained as CEO.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, claiming that the company had strayed from its original mission and now operates for the benefit of Microsoft (one of its main investors).
Conflict escalates
The conflict intensified recently with the announcement of the Stargate project made by Donald Trump, in which Altman is involved.
The Republican announced a huge $500 billion infrastructure project called Stargate.
Musk publicly questioned the development saying that financially it was not possible and wrote on his X account that "they don't really have the money."
SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2025
Trump's intention on OpenAI
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The Republican administration's intention is to maintain leadership in AI research and industrial innovation.
As soon as he assumed the presidency, Donald Trump, signed an executive order to revoke certain policies and directives for U.S. innovation in AI, clearing the way for the United States to act decisively to retain world leadership in Artificial Intelligence.
To this end, the Republican administration argues that U.S. policy is to maintain and enhance AI dominance with the goal of promoting human development, economic competitiveness and national security.
Why is AI content neutrality important?
When using Artificial Intelligence, users are exposed to certain ideological biases that derive in public discourse, so these tools are perceived as "manipulative" rather than "neutral," which corrodes confidence in a technology destined to be of much use.
Prioritize accuracy and neutrality: select training data carefully.
Advance interpretability research: interpretability tools that can pinpoint which parts of the training data influence specific responses could help identify and correct biases.
Adopt transparency rules: legislation requiring AI providers to disclose specific data on training methods and data sources.
Establish independent oversight: provide for independent, nonpartisan organizations to routinely evaluate AI models for political bias.
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