Billionaire Elon Musk announced that he has made an offer to buy OpenAI, the “father” of the famous ChatGPT software, for $97.4 billion. This offer was sent to OpenAI’s board of directors yesterday, February 10.

Elon Musk said that this deal will be backed by a powerful “shark” team, including famous investors such as investment group Valor Equity Partners, venture capital firm 8VC, media mogul Ari Emanuel…

Elon Musk said that this deal will help “OpenAI get back on the right track”.

“It’s time to get OpenAI back on the right track with an open source model, focusing on safety for the common good like before. We will make sure that happens”, Lawyer Marc Toberoff, Elon Musk’s representative, answered in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

OpenAI CEO makes sarcastic comments when Elon Musk wants to buy the company for $97.4 billion – 1

Elon Musk wants to spend money to buy OpenAI, but the company’s CEO mocks him for it ).

The offer to buy OpenAI comes as the company is having to change its operating structure to seek profits. OpenAI is in the process of raising an additional $40 billion in investment capital from “sharks” to help the company continue to grow.

Notably, OpenAI is currently the head of Stargate, a multinational project in cooperation between OpenAI and SoftBank (Japan), along with two Korean technology companies SK Hynix and Samsung, with a commitment to invest $500 billion in the next 4 years to develop AI to counter China’s influence in the field of artificial intelligence.

In response to the news that Elon Musk wanted to buy OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman of this company made a sarcastic comment on his personal X page: “No thanks, but we’ll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Sam Altman’s sarcastic comment was like a rejection of Elon Musk’s offer to buy OpenAI.

Previously, Elon Musk spent $44 billion to buy social network Twitter in October 2022. Sam Altman seemed to want to satirize Elon Musk that the price of $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI was too cheap.

Although not listed on the stock exchange, OpenAI is currently valued at about $300 billion.

The complicated relationship between Elon Musk and OpenAI

Elon Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, along with Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever and several others. OpenAI was originally a non-profit organization with the goal of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.

Musk was not only a co-founder but also played an important role in providing initial funding, contributing more than $100 million in the early stages to help the company operate.

The original vision of Musk and the other co-founders was to create an open, transparent, and safety-focused AI research organization.

OpenAI CEO sarcastically commented when Elon Musk wanted to buy the company for $97.4 billion – 2

The relationship between Elon Musk and Sam Altman has “gone from friends to enemies” despite working together to found OpenAI

However, in February 2018, Elon Musk left OpenAI due to disagreements about the company’s development direction. While Musk wanted to maintain its non-profit and completely open-source nature, OpenAI’s leaders wanted to develop the company in a for-profit model.

After leaving, Elon Musk’s relationship with OpenAI and Sam Altman personally became strained. Musk has repeatedly publicly criticized OpenAI for betraying its original mission when it was founded.

In July 2023, Elon Musk founded his own artificial intelligence company called xAI, as a move to confront OpenAI in the race to develop artificial intelligence.

In early 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing them of violating the original agreement to develop AI for the public good.

Now, Elon Musk’s move to spend money to buy OpenAI has further increased the tension between this billionaire and the former company he helped found.