Elon Musk-Led Investor Group Submits Bid to Buy OpenAI Nonprofit

A group of investors led by Elon Musk reportedly submitted a bid to OpenAI’s board of directors Monday (Feb. 10) to buy the nonprofit that controls the company for $97.4 billion.

The unsolicited offer was submitted by Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Monday.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement provided to WSJ by Toberoff, per the report. “We will make sure that happens.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a Monday post on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” referring to the Musk-owned X by its former name and offering one-tenth the price the group offered for the OpenAI nonprofit.

Musk and Altman are already engaged in a court battle over the future of OpenAI, which they co-founded as a charity in 2015, according to the WSJ report.

After Musk left the company and Altman became CEO, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary that has enabled it to raise money from Microsoft and other investors, the report said.

Now, Altman is turning the subsidiary into a traditional company and spinning out the nonprofit, which would own a stake in the for-profit firm, per the report.

Musk’s bid sets a high valuation on the nonprofit and could mean that the operator of the nonprofit would have a large and possibly controlling stake in the for-profit firm, the report said.

Toberoff told WSJ that the investor group will match or exceed any higher bids offered for the nonprofit, per the report.

It was reported Feb. 4 that Musk’s suit against OpenAI might proceed to trial, as a judge said parts of the case can move forward.

“Something is going to trial in this case,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said. “[Elon Musk will] sit on the stand, present it to a jury, and a jury will decide who is right.”

Musk has argued that OpenAI’s switch to a for-profit company goes against its original mission, while OpenAI has countered that the switch is necessary to help it land the type of investments it needs to develop the best AI models.