Openai rejects Elon Musk’s $ 97.4 billion bid for the company control

Openai’s Board of Directors on Friday rejected a $ 97.4 billion bid by Elon Musk and a consortium Altman.

In a statement, Bret Taylor, chairman of the Openai Council, said: “Openai is not for sale and the Board of Directors unanimously rejected Mr Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition.” Mr Taylor referred to AI by Mr Musk, Xai.

Openai sent a letter to Marc Toberoff on Friday, the lawyer representing Mr Musk and the investors who made the offer, saying that the offer was not “in the interest of Oai’s mission”, which is to build artificial intelligence that benefits “All humanity.”

Mr Musk and other investors made their bid on Monday for the assets of the non -profit organization controlled by Openai. With the offer, Mr Musk confuses in a plan that Mr Altman has changed the corporate structure of Openai. Mr Altman hopes to shift the company’s control to Openai investors, including Microsoft.

Mr Toberoff said in a statement to the New York Times: “This is not surprising, as Altman and Board of Directors Taylor have already rejected the $ 97 billion bid of Musk, and said they had not yet received it. We are. But surprised to see the Board of Directors, which has strict swift tasks to carefully examine the offer for good faith on behalf of charity, uses the same type of dual -speech diversion of Altman used to testify to the Senate. “

Mr Toberoff insisted that Openai actually put the assets of the non -profit organization for sale. “They only sell him in a fraction of what Musk has offered, enriching the members of the Board of Directors,” he said, “instead of charity in a classic transaction of self-esteem.” He added, “will anyone explain how it benefits” all humanity “?”

Mr Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Mr Musk and Mr Altman have been in opposition to years. Mr Musk helped create Openai as a non -profit organization in 2015, along with Mr Altman and others. In 2018, Mr Musk left the organization after a battle for controlling the company. Mr Altman then linked Openai to a speculative company so that it could increase the billions of dollars needed to build AI technologies.

However, the non -profit organization maintained control of the company. Last year, Mr Altman and his colleagues began working on a plan to shift the company’s control of the company from the non -profit organization to Openai investors.

The offer of Mr Musk’s $ 97.4 billion could complicate this plan. In order to separate Openai from the non -profit council, Mr Altman and his allies must offset it. Openai may pay the non -profit fee of a one -off fee, for example, or give it a minority to the company.

But the assets of the non -profit organization did not receive value, which Mr Musk was trying to consolidate with his offer. His offer meant that the arm of Openai’s speculative character would have to spend more to gain independence from the non -profit.

Mr Musk also filed a lawsuit with the federal court last year to prevent Openai’s plans for restructuring.

Robert Bonta, California’s Attorney General and Democrat, said this week in an interview that the state examined Openai’s plan to move to a speculative structure.

“There is a way to do it right. There is a way to make it wrong and we are watching to make sure they do it right, “he said, adding that his office was also watching Mr. Musk.

We are watching what he is doing, “Mr Bonta said.

As Mr Musk fights Openai, he also raises money for XAI. The start, which makes a chatbot called Grok, is in talks about a new round of funding that could estimate it in $ 75 billion, from about $ 40 billion just two months ago, two people were aware of the discussions.

The conversations are in the early stages, they said, and it is not clear how much money will increase. Bloomberg reported the conversations earlier.

In December, Xai had raised $ 6 billion, saying he would use the money to build infrastructure and accelerate research and growth. Blackrock, Fidelity, Sequoia Capital and other investors participated in funding.

(Times has filed a lawsuit against Openai and Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content of AI systems. Openai and Microsoft have denied these allegations.)