Openai's board on Friday rejected a $97.4 billion bid by Elon Musk and an investor consortium, gaining control of the artificial intelligence company, between Musk and Openai's CEO Sam Altman. deepened the feud.
In a statement, Openai Board Chair Bret Taylor said, “Openai is not on sale and the board unanimously rejected Musk's latest attempt to disrupt the competition.”
Openai also wrote to Musk's attorney, Marc Toberoff, who said the bid was “not in the best interests of Oai's mission.”
Musk and Toberov did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Openai's denial followed a $97.4 billion offer from Musk and other investors on Monday for the assets of the nonprofit that manages Openai. In the bid, Musk had been interfering with plans for Altman to change the open corporate structure by shifting the company's management from a nonprofit to open investors, including Microsoft.
Musk and Altman have been in conflict for years. Musk helped create Openai as a nonprofit organization in 2015, along with Altman and others. In 2018, Musk left the organization after a fight for control of the company. Altman then attached Openai to a commercial company, allowing him to raise the billions of dollars needed to build AI technology.
The nonprofit maintained control of the company. Last year, Altman and his colleagues began working on plans to shift the company's management from a nonprofit to Openai investors. Musk's $97.4 bid could complicate that plan.
(The New York Times sued Openai and Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content related to AI Systems. Openai and Microsoft denied these claims.)
This is a developing story. Please check for updates.
