Experts have said that Sam Altman might ‘not be able to ignore’ Elon Musk’s offer of $97 billion to buy OpenAI from him.
The two tech moguls, who both co-founded OpenAI back in 2015, have been feuding in recent years.
Musk has made his disapproval of the company’s move from non-profit to for-profit very clear.
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The Tesla boss had previously said: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.
“We will make sure that happens.”
And it seems that Musk believes he is the man to complete that task, offering Altman $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, despite it being most recently valued at $157 billion.
However, Altman wasn’t interested, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
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Musk, who bought Twitter back in 2022 for $44 billion, was quick to fire back, calling Altman a ‘swindler’.
There certainly doesn’t appear to be any love lost between the two billionaires, but experts believe that Altman might have no choice but to take Musk up on his offer.
Speaking to Reuters, Gil Luria, who is an analyst at DA Davidson, said: “The offer seems to be backed by more credible investors. OpenAI may not be able to ignore it.
“It will be the fiduciary responsibility of OpenAI’s board to decide whether this is a better offer, which could call into question the offer from SoftBank.”
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The offer could throw a spanner in the works for OpenAI’s fundraising, and if that wasn’t enough, last year Musk also sued both OpenAI and Altman.
In the lawsuit, Musk accused them of going back on promises to develop AI carefully and make it freely available.
He also claimed that they were breaching a contract by making the move towards profit.
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The request by Musk for a court order to block OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company has not yet been ruled on by a judge.
However, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has said that she would not block the case from going to a jury trial.
The SpaceX CEO launched xAI as a direct rival to OpenAI in March 2023.
He’s also been critical of the $500 billion OpenAI-led project that was announced by Trump at the White House.
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The aim for the project is to fund infrastructure for artificial intelligence in order to beat rival nations in the development of AI technology.
Trump revealed that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle would create a joint venture called Stargate.
As Stargate, the group intends to build data centers, which will also create more than 100,000 jobs in the US.