Elon Musk has reportedly tried to buy OpenAI, according to a new report. And just as quickly as that report emerged, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has seemingly already rejected the bid.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman of OpenAI have a bit of an “open” rivalry. Musk is currently in the process of suing OpenAI for straying from its non-profit research-oriented roots, as Altman in partnership with Microsoft has gradually taken the company in a more profit-first direction. As such, OpenAI is separated into two entities, one continuing to operate as a non-profit, while its for-profit arm is on the hook to the tune of billions in partnerships with Microsoft and other investors. Indeed, the last funding round OpenAI valued the company at roughly $157 billion.
Various companies are desperately vying for the top spot in the space right now, with Google Gemini, Meta’s Llama, and players from China like DeepSeek constantly shaking up the space. OpenAI generally remains the forerunner, though, which integrates with Microsoft Copilot, led by ChatGPT.
Elon Musk’s own xAI, powered by chatbot Grok, seeks to dethrone OpenAI with its own models. Elon Musk has been particularly aggressive in his pursuit of OpenAI’s crown, owing to previous history with Sam Altman. Indeed, Musk co-founded OpenAI back in 2015, but left the company citing conflicts with Tesla’s early AI efforts. There have been suggestions from OpenAI’s legal team that the real reason Musk left revolved around a rejection of him gaining more control of the company.
As Microsoft knows, if you can’t beat ’em organically, beat ’em inorganically, and that’s reportedly what Musk has attempted to do. An unsolicited bid of $97.4 billion to purchase OpenAI’s non-profit arm came through earlier today, reported by WSJ. The consortium of unnamed investors led by Musk might have already been rejected, though.
In a post on X (Twitter), Altman jokingly offered to buy X for $9.74 billion, with a cheeky “no thanks.” Musk replied by calling him a “swindler.”
Musk has also been critical of Sam Altman’s $500 billion “Stargate” project. Backed by President Trump, Stargate would see OpenAI lead the construction of an absolutely gargantuan server array to power future generations of artificial intelligence. Trump’s move to support Sam Altman and OpenAI could be considered fairly surprising, given how close Musk is to the current United States administration.
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Trump has hailed the Stargate project in previous comments, calling it a “resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential.” Trump suggested the rivalry between Altman and Musk was incidental, shrugging off reporters by saying “[Musk] hates one of the people on the deal,” most likely referring to Altman.
Competition in the AI space is driving innovation at a breakneck pace. DeepSeek out of China wiped billions of dollars off of AI stocks recently, with reports that it could mirror ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost. Although, OpenAI’s Deep Research project once again seems to have one-upped its rivals in response, as it rapidly tries to close in on next-gen AGI tech, which would give AI models the ability to potentially understand context, rather than simply mimic it.
