A consortium led by Elon Musk offered US$97.4 billion to buy the non-profit that controls OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, months after the billionaire sued the artificial intelligence start-up to block it from transitioning to a for-profit firm.
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Musk’s bid could ratchet up long-standing tensions between himself and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the future of the start-up at the heart of a boom in generative AI technology.
The two are already embroiled in a continuing lawsuit. Musk criticised a massive, US$500 billion OpenAI-led project called Stargate announced with great fanfare at the White House just after US President Donald Trump returned to office, suggesting the investors involved lacked the funding for the project.
Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, said he submitted the bid to OpenAI’s board on Monday, according to the report.
“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” the WSJ cited Musk as saying in a statement provided by Toberoff. “We will make sure that happens.”
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OpenAI, Musk, Toberoff and OpenAI backer Microsoft did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.