“The Board of Directors have a fiduciary duty to take the offer seriously and find a better deal.”
-Shruti Gurudanti, Rose Law Group partner and director of corporate transactions
By Molly Bohannon | Forbes Staff
Billionaire Elon Musk and other investors made a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit group that controls OpenAI, escalating a longstanding feud between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—though Altman quickly rejected the offer on X, Musk’s social media site, and mocked the platform.
Why Does Musk Take Issue With Openai Being For-Profit?
When OpenAI launched, it said its goal was to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” Its announcement post continued: “Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.” Musk sued OpenAI for allegedly becoming a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of its investor Microsoft, and he reupped the lawsuit in November in an effort to stop OpenAI from becoming for-profit. The battle over OpenAI’s profit status is part of Musk’s longstanding feud with Altman, the two of whom were among 11 cofounders of OpenAI and served as co-chairs of the non-profit research organization. The feud has escalated as Musk’s xAI has been competing with OpenAI and others in AI.
