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According to the Wall Street Journal,An investor consortium led by Elon Musk plans to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion。Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, said the offer had been submitted to OpenAI’s board of directors and claimed that “it is time for OpenAI to return to its former open-source, security-first philosophy.”
Ultraman, CEO of OpenAI, quickly responded on social platform X (formerly Twitter):”No, thanks. But if you want, we can buy Twitter for $9.74 billion.”Musk commented on Ultraman’s post and called him a “liar” and forwarded an old video accusing him of being a “scam Ultraman.”
The acquisition is said to be supported by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI. Investors include Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, 8VC and other institutions. Ari Emanuel, CEO of Hollywood brokerage firm Endeavor, also supported the deal through its investment fund. Toberov said that if the deal is reached, xAI may merge with OpenAI, thereby integrating resources to challenge the existing AI market landscape.
This acquisition shows that Musk still retains his desire to bring OpenAI under his command, but it is still “nonsense” to the outside world. After all, in terms of the amount alone, OpenAI’s valuation has soared to US$300 billion due to SoftBank’s upcoming US$40 billion investment, while Musk’s offer is only one-third of it.
Ultraman’s sarcastic response and Musk’s accusations also pushed the seemingly hopeless acquisition into a “war of words.” The New York Times described Musk’s acquisition proposal as “the latest and possibly most reckless attack” on OpenAI.
However,Musk’s acquisition is not a “vulgar move”。
As we all know, the feud between Musk and Ultraman has a long history. As one of the founders of OpenAI, Musk tried to merge OpenAI into Tesla and serve as CEO. However, in the battle for control of OpenAI, Ultraman eventually won the position of CEO, while Musk left the board of directors in 2018.
As OpenAI launches ChatGPT in 2022 and rapidly commercializes it, the conceptual differences between the two sides have gradually intensified. Musk has repeatedly publicly criticized OpenAI for violating the open source philosophy at its inception.
Faced with OpenAI’s gradually clear for-profit transformation, Musk naturally will not “sit idly by”. He filed multiple lawsuits accusing OpenAI of “suspected monopoly” and “violating its nonprofit mission.”
But these have not stopped OpenAI from moving on the road to commercialization. At the end of 2024, OpenAI published an article saying that the board of directors is reviewing its corporate structure and will continue to maintain a combination of non-profit organizations and for-profit organizations in the future. Existing for-profit organizations will be transformed into Delaware Public Interest Enterprises (PBC)., non-profit organizations ‘significant interests in existing for-profit organizations will appear in the form of shares of PBC, and non-profit organizations will hire leadership teams and employees to carry out charitable activities in areas such as health care, education and science.
This also means that OpenAI’s for-profit transformation is about to be completed and non-profit organizations will be spun off. Musk believes that OpenAI may underestimate the value of non-profit institutions when it divested them.
In January 2025, Musk’s lawyers wrote to the attorneys general of California and Delaware requesting a public bidding for OpenAI to ensure that non-profit organizations receive fair compensation when divested assets.
Today, Musk’s acquisition seems to be aimed at non-profit organizations that are about to be spun off. Axios financial editor Dan Primack pointed out that Musk does not want to acquire OpenAl’s nonprofit organization itself, but wants to acquire the basic for-profit assets that Ultraman must purchase in order to restructure the company. Musk’s acquisition was a provocation for OpenAI and also set a price that could cause Ultraman to pay more than he might be willing to pay when spinning off non-profit organizations.
According to foreign media quoted experts as saying,”Non-profit organizations should take money to do any good. If OpenAI would rather sell it to others for less money, this involves protecting the interests of the beneficiaries of non-profit organizations.” This also shows that Musk’s acquisition will indeed have an impact on OpenAI. If OpenAI rejects the acquisition, it may need to prove that its board’s decisions are in the “interests of charity beneficiaries” or it may face more stringent regulatory review.
