By Manuel Ausloos, Krystal Hu
PARIS / NEW YORK (Reuters) -The nonprofit that controls ChatGPT maker OpenAI is not for sale, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Reuters on Tuesday when asked to comment on Elon Musk’s offer to buy it.
“I have nothing to say. I mean, it’s ridiculous,” Altman said on the sidelines of an AI summit in Paris.
A consortium led by Musk said on Monday it had offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, another salvo in the billionaire’s fight to block the artificial intelligence startup from transitioning to a for-profit firm.
As of Tuesday afternoon EST, the two sides could not agree on the status of the bid or even if it was ever received.
Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, told Reuters that he sent the offer by email on Monday to OpenAI’s outside counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. A source close to OpenAI’s board insisted the board had not received any formal bid from the Musk side yet.
“The company is not for sale. It’s another one of his tactics to try to mess with us,” Altman said, referring to Musk.
In an internal message to OpenAI employees on Monday, Altman said the board, though it had not officially reviewed the offer, planned to reject it based on the interest of OpenAI’s mission.
Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit, but left before the company took off. He founded the competing AI startup, xAI, in 2023.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of technology company X, is a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. He leads the Department of Government Efficiency, a new arm of the White House tasked with radically shrinking the federal bureaucracy.
OpenAI is seeking to transition into a for-profit from a nonprofit entity, which it says is required to secure the capital needed for developing the best AI models.
(Reporting by Manuel Ausloos and Ingrid Melander in Paris and Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Alison Williams, Catherine Evans and Matthew Lewis)
