OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman brushed aside Elon Musk’s bid to take control of the ChatGPT maker, calling it an effort to “slow us down.”
“OpenAI is not for sale,” Altman told Bloomberg’s “The Pulse” on Tuesday. “Elon tries all sorts of things for a long time. This is the late…this week’s episode.”
When asked if he takes Musk’s bid seriously, Altman said, “I think he’s probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor.”
It comes less than a day after a Musk-led consortium of investors offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. The offer, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was sent to OpenAI’s board of directors on Monday, according to Musk’s attorney, Mark Toberoff.
The offer is significantly lower than OpenAI’s last valuation of $157 billion, which is expected to increase as SoftBank comes close to finalizing a deal to invest $40 billion into the AI firm.
Shortly after the Journal report, Altman wrote on X, “[N]o thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk responded to Altman shortly later, writing “swindler” on X.
In another reply, Musk wrote “Scam Altman.”
The unsolicited offer marks the latest incident in a years-long feud between Altman and Musk, who helped found OpenAI with Altman in 2015.
Musk, who left the company in 2018, has an ongoing suit against the company, Altman and Greg Brockman, another OpenAI co-founder alleging the ChatGPT leaders strayed from the company’s roots to pursue profits over benefitting the public good.
The Tesla CEO has taken great issue with Altman and OpenAI’s plans turn it into a for-profit company and said Monday that “it’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”
Altman on Tuesday said OpenAI is “not moving to a for-profit model” and said “we’re not sure we’re gonna do it at all.”
“No matter what, the nonprofit will continue to be extremely important, it will drive the mission. It will continue to exist. The board is looking at lots of options about how to best structure for this next phase, but the nonprofit is not changing in anything or going anywhere.”
Musk now owns his own AI firm, xAI.
“I wish he would compete with us by building a better product but I think there’s been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff,” Altman said. “Now this and we’ll just try to put our head down and keep working.”
