Musk suggests to purchase OpenAI

(MENAFN) Elon Musk, along with a group of investors, has made a $97.4 billion offer to acquire OpenAI, aiming to return the artificial intelligence company to its original mission of creating technology for the benefit of humanity. The proposal, made to OpenAI's board of directors, challenges the company's recent shift towards a for-profit model.

Musk expressed his desire for OpenAI to refocus on being an open-source, safety-oriented force for good. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, rejected the offer, sarcastically suggesting Musk buy his social media platform, X, for $9.74 billion instead. Musk responded by calling Altman a "swindler" and mockingly labeling him "Scam Altman."

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018 due to disagreements over strategy, particularly regarding OpenAI's commercialization efforts and its partnership with Microsoft. In 2024, Musk sued OpenAI, accusing it of straying from its mission by prioritizing profits.

Musk’s legal team argued that if OpenAI plans to operate as a fully for-profit entity, the original charity that supported it should be fairly compensated for the loss of control over the transformative technology.

Meanwhile, OpenAI faces stiff competition from Chinese companies like DeepSeek, which unveiled its own open-source AI model, DeepSeek-R1, that reportedly surpasses OpenAI’s offerings in key areas.

Musk has also launched his own AI company, xAI, which introduced Grok, a chatbot designed to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Musk aims for xAI to challenge both OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, with a focus on truthfulness and transparency.

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