On Wednesday, Elon Musk offered to withdraw his $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI if its board halts the transition to a for-profit entity, according to a legal filing further fueling the Sam Altman and Elon Musk dispute.
The dispute originally comes from OpenAI’s 2019 shift to a “capped profit” model and its current conversion into a public benefit corporation.
Musk, a co-founder and vocal critic of OpenAI, argues this change puts commercial interest ahead of the AI company’s original mission. The Elon Musk and OpenAI legal battle adds pressure on OpenAI’s management to clarify its long-term vision over its governance and direction.
Ongoing Controversy of Altman and Musk
The tech billionaire, Trump’s top tech ally, is suing OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging anticompetitive behavior and fraud. With the lawsuit, Musk wants to block OpenAI’s restructuring and prevent the non-profit GPT-parent from relinquishing asset control.
Musk’s offer to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit was promptly rejected by the AI company’s leadership, with its lawyers claiming his proposal “doesn’t set a value for [OpenAI’s] nonprofit” and flatly said the nonprofit is not for sale.
Sam Altman and Elon Musk Legal Feud
Based on the filing, submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s legal feud threatens OpenAI’s future.
“If […] the assets of the charity were to be sold, a group led by Musk has made a serious offer […] that would be given to the charity in furtherance of its mission,” the filing says. But it says that if OpenAI’s board chooses to preserve the nonprofit’s mission and bring an end to its evolution into a complete for-profit business, Musk will rescind the offer.
OpenAI lawyers have fought Elon Musk on Sam Altman and ChatGPT legal attempts, calling his bid “an improper attempt to disparage a competitor” and contending it is inconsistent with his contentions that OpenAI’s restructuring constitutes a violation of its original charitable trust mission.
With the court fight still ongoing, the future of OpenAI is uncertain, with Musk and Altman rivalry reignites over Trump’s AI Czar appointmentwhichadds further pressure on the company’s board to resolve its long-term structure and mission.
So, does Elon Musk have any control of OpenAI? Well, no, not really. But with the whole dance of the AI dragons’ symphony, Elon is clearly trying different things, and has been for a while, and the recent almost $100 billion bid is nothing but this “week’s episode,” as Altman put it.
Be that as it may, whatever Elon tries, it’s safe to say that Sam Altman is not taking it seriously, claiming that the Tesla CEO is simply “trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor, […] he raised a lot of money for xAI and they’re trying to compete with us from a technological perspective, getting the product to the market,” Altman told Bloomberg.
“And I wish he would just compete by building better products, but I think there’s a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of crazy stuff. And now this.”
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