The firm announced on Friday that its board of directors had “unanimously” turned down billionaire Elon Musk’s bid to purchase the charity that essentially runs OpenAI.
The board chair, Bret Taylor, described Musk’s bid as “an attempt to disrupt his competition” in a statement posted on X by OpenAI’s press account.
“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” Taylor also stated. “Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure [artificial general intelligence] benefits all of humanity.”
The New York Times said that OpenAI also mailed a letter to Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, saying the bid was “not in the best interests of [OpenAI’s] mission.”
Musk, his AI business xAI, and a group of investors made a bid on Monday to pay $97.4 billion to acquire OpenAI’s charity. The board of directors and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman swiftly, though not formally, rejected the unsolicited bid. In a statement, Andy Nussbaum, the counsel expressing OpenAI’s board, stated Musk’s bid “doesn’t set a value for [OpenAI’s] nonprofit” and that the nonprofit is “not for sale.”
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, sued the business and Altman last year, claiming that OpenAI had committed fraud and anticompetitive behavior, among other things.
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit before converting to a “capped-profit” structure in 2019. The nonprofit is the only controlling stakeholder of the capped-profit OpenAI company and upholds formal fiduciary accountability to the nonprofit’s charter. OpenAI is now going through a reorganization, changing from a traditional for-profit company to a public benefit corporation. However, Musk is suing in an effort to halt the conversion.
Musk’s attorneys stated in a court filing on Wednesday that if the board of OpenAI “preserve[s] the charity’s mission” and prevents OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company, the billionaire will back out of the offer. Attorneys for OpenAI described Musk’s attempt to take over the business as “an improper bid to undermine a competitor” in a filing earlier that day. They also cited Musk’s earlier court argument that a restructuring of the startup would violate its charitable trust mission.
Altman and Musk’s backers have been at odds over the agreement this week. Altman is a “phony” who is “trying to get away with cheating the charity and its original mission,” according to Ari Emanuel, one of the backers of Musk’s plan for the company OpenAI. Altman also joked that Musk’s life is “from a position of insecurity” and described Musk’s bid as “an attempt to slow [OpenAI] down.”
Recommended for You:
- In protest against inheritance tax, UK farmers use tractors to block the streets of Parliament
- Guatemala Bus Accident: At Least 30 People Dead, As Per Report
- For making “obscene” comments, Assam police file a formal complaint against Ashish Chanchlani, Samay Raina, and Ranveer Allahbadia.
- An examination of previous issues, ranging from Deepika Padukone’s sadness to the Uorfi Javed controversy
