The Openai Board of Openai on Friday opposed a $ 97.4 billion offer by Elon Musk and a consortium of investors to gain control of the artificial intelligence company, deepening a dispute between Mr. Musk and Openai’s executive chief, Sam Altman.
In a statement, Bret Taylor, the chairman of the Openai Board, said, “Openai is not for sale, and the Board has unanimously rejected Mr Musk’s last attempt to disrupt his competition.” Mr. Taylor was referring to his company of Mr. Musk, Xai.
Openai sent a letter to Marc Toberoff on Friday, the lawyer representing Mr. Musk and the investors who bid, saying the offer was “not in the best interest of the OAI mission”, which is to build artificial intelligence that benefits “to All humanity. “
Openai’s refusal followed the $ 97.4 billion bid by Mr. Musk and other investors on Monday for the non -profit assets that Openai controls. With the offer, Mr. Musk is interfering with a plan Mr. Altman has made to change the OpenAi corporate structure. Mr. Altman hopes to shift the company’s control to OpenAi investors, including Microsoft.
Mr. Toberoff said in a statement sent to the New York Times: “This does not surprise, given that Altman and board chairman Taylor already refused to offer the 97 billion musk dollars as they stated that they had not yet received it But we are surprised to see the board, which has strict tasks of faith to carefully consider the bond in the name of charity, to use the same type of alku with two deflective verbs used to prove the Senate.
Mr. Toberoff insisted that Openai was really putting the nonprofit and non -profit assets. “They are simply selling it themselves in a part of what Musk has offered, enriching board members,” he said, “rather than charity in a classic self-treatment transaction.” He added, “Will anyone explain how the benefits of this ‘all mankind’?”
Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman have been in opposition for years. Mr. Musk helped create Openai as a nonprofit in 2015, along with Mr. Altman and others. In 2018, Mr. Musk left the organization after a battle for company control. Mr. Altman then joined Openai to a lucrative company so that he can collect billions of dollars needed to build a technology of him.
However, the non -profit maintained the company’s control. Last year, Mr. Altman and his colleagues began working on a plan to shift the company’s control from the nonprofit to Openai investors.
Mr. Musk’s offer 97.4 $ can complicate that plan. To separate Openai from the nonprofit board, Mr. Altman and his allies must compensate it. Openai can pay a nonprofit a fee once, for example, or give it a portion of minorities in the company.
But the nonprofit riches were not given a value, which Mr. Musk was trying to create with his offer. His offer meant that Openai’s lucrative wing would have to spend more to gain independence from the non -profit.
Mr. Musk also filed a lawsuit in federal court last year to block Openai’s plans to restructure.
Robert Bonta, the Attorney General of California and a Democrat, said this week in an interview that the state was considering Openai’s plan to move on to a lucrative structure.
“There is a way to do it properly. There is a way to make it wrong, and we are monitoring to make sure they do it properly, ”he said, adding that his office was also looking closely at Mr. Musk.
We are “monitoring everything he does,” said Mr. Bonta.
While Mr. Musk fights Openai, he is also raising money for Xai. The beginning, which makes a chatbot called Grok, is in talks on a new round of funding that can value it up to $ 75 billion, from about $ 40 billion just two months ago, two people with knowledge of discussions said.
The talks are in the early stages, they said, and it is unclear how much money they will gather. Bloomberg earlier reported the talks.
Xai had raised $ 6 billion recently in December, saying he would use money to build infrastructure and accelerate research and development. Blackrock, Fidelity, Sequoia Capital and other investors participated in funding.
(New York Times has sued Openai and Microsoft for copyright violations of news contents regarding it.