Elon Musk has tried to buy OpenAI for nearly $100 billion and CEO Sam Altman had the perfect comeback for him.
Altman reportedly declared that the OpenAI board offered $97.4 billion bid by the Tesla CEO and a group of investors to take over the AI company.
“It is time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Marc Toberoff, an attorney representing the investors, told The Wall Street Journal. “We will make sure that happens.”
However, according to the Information, the AI founder dismissed the offer pretty quickly, informing staff in a memo that the company had no interest in the 'supposed bid'.
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And instead of just rejecting the offer, he threw some online shade.
"no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want," Altman indirectly shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday (10 February).
It seems Altman isn't easily swayed by Musk's billion-dollar offer.
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Shortly after he shared his post, Musk fired back at Altman, calling him a 'swindler.'
Viewers were loving the drama on the social forum yesterday.
Some people attached laughing and popcorn-eating gifs, adding comments like: "another saga," "Savage!" and "lol
Never leaving this app".
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Others were loving the fact Altman referred to the platform as 'Twitter' replying with: "Still calling it Twitter. Respect" and "Excellent. Also please continue to call it twitter. Most of the rest of us do."
This latest clash is just another round in the ongoing feud between the co-founders of OpenAI.
Musk helped found the AI company in 2015 when it was created as a nonprofit to ensure that AI would benefit all humanity.
However, the company began to shift towards a commercial purpose and the SpaceX founder left the company in 2018 due a power struggle.
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In 2022, OpenAI became one of the most well-funded machine-learning startups globally with with the release of its popular chatbot, ChatGPT. By 2023, it had secured over $12 billion in investments. Now, with the latest investment funds and backing from software giant Microsoft, the company is worth a whopping $157 billion.
Musk, on the other hand, became highly critical of OpenAI’s direction and even filed several lawsuits against the company last year, claiming it betrayed its original mission and violated licensing agreements.
The tech mogul launched his own AI company called xAI as a direct competitor of OpenAI. However, if the bid was to have been accepted, it could put Musk as a major player in the AI industry (if he wasn't already).