OpenAI’s board of directors has “unanimously” rejected billionaire Elon Musk’s offer to buy the nonprofit that effectively governs OpenAI, the company said on Friday.
In a statement shared via OpenAI’s press account on X, Bret Taylor, board chair, called Musk’s bid “an attempt to disrupt […] competition.”
“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” Taylor said. “Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure [artificial general intelligence] benefits all of humanity.”
On Monday, Musk, his AI company, xAI, and a group of investors offered to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit for $97.4 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company’s board directors quickly — but not formally — dismissed the unsolicited proposal. In a statement, Andy Nussbaum, the counsel representing OpenAI’s board, said Musk’s bid “doesn’t set a value for [OpenAI’s] nonprofit” and that the nonprofit is “not for sale.”
Musk, an OpenAI co-founder, last year brought a lawsuit against the company and Altman that alleges that OpenAI engaged in anticompetitive behavior and fraud, among other offenses.
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit before it transitioned to a “capped-profit” structure in 2019. The nonprofit is the sole controlling shareholder of the capped-profit OpenAI corporation, which retains formal fiduciary responsibility to the nonprofit’s charter. OpenAI is now in the process of restructuring — this time to a traditional for-profit company, specifically a public benefit corporation. But Musk, via the lawsuit, is seeking to enjoin the conversion.
In a court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for Elon Musk said the billionaire will withdraw his bid if OpenAI’s board “preserve[s] the charity’s mission” and halt the company’s conversion to a for-profit. In a filing earlier the same day, attorneys for OpenAI called Musk’s move to take control of the company “an improper bid to undermine a competitor,” and a contradiction of his position in court that a transfer of the startup’s assets through restructuring would breach its mission as a charitable trust.
