Musk Bids $97.4B for OpenAI, Altman Fires Back: 'No Thanks'

A group of investors led by Elon Musk submitted a $97.4 billion bid on Monday to take over OpenAI, Musk's lawyer, Marc Toberoff, confirmed to the Wall Street Journal. The unsolicited offer targets the nonprofit that controls the company and lands squarely in the middle of the ongoing feud between Musk and Sam Altman, who co-founded OpenAI together in 2015. Altman's reply was as short as it was cutting: "no thank you."

An Offer That's Also a Legal Maneuver

The number — $97.4 billion, according to the Journal — is no ordinary business move. Musk is already locked in litigation with OpenAI: in 2024, he filed a legal injunction against the organization's plan to abandon its nonprofit status and convert into a for-profit company.

That transition sits at the heart of the conflict. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit with a mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, and that original structure still underpins control of the company. A buyout offer aimed directly at that entity forces it to put a price tag on what it has long framed as a mission, not an asset up for sale.

That's the real edge of the move. By putting forward a public, dollar-figure bid, Musk's group makes it more expensive and more complicated for OpenAI to convert into a for-profit business: the organization's leadership would have to justify turning down a concrete sum of money for assets whose value someone has now put on the table.

The "Open Source" Argument

Musk's team is framing the bid as an effort to bring OpenAI back to its roots. "It's time for OpenAI to return to the open source, safety-focused force for good it once was," Musk told The Journal, by way of Toberoff. "We will make sure that happens."

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, Musk doubled down, pointing to his own AI company, xAI, and its Grok model. "At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow," he said. "We've made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators."

Open source — the practice of releasing a system's code so anyone can inspect, use, or modify it — is the banner under which Musk is framing this fight. It's also the underlying accusation behind his lawsuit: that OpenAI abandoned the open ethos it was founded on to become a closed, commercial company.

xAI's involvement in the bid adds another layer. The participation of Musk's own AI firm has fueled speculation that a successful acquisition could lead to a merger between the two companies. In other words: the same person accusing OpenAI of drifting toward commercialization would buy it and fold it into his own AI business.

Altman's Response

Altman didn't wait. That same Monday, he posted a message on X mixing rejection with sarcasm: "no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."

The jab is a direct nod to Musk's recent history. In 2022, Musk and a group of investors bought Twitter for $44 billion, a deal that marked his full entry into the social platforms business. Altman's counteroffer — a tenth of what Musk paid for the social network — is a way of throwing his own history back at him.

Beyond the tone, the message makes OpenAI's position clear: there's no deal on the table. TechCrunch said it had reached out to OpenAI for further comment.

A Personal Feud Years in the Making

Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 along with several other people. What began as a shared project eventually turned into a split that is now playing out on multiple fronts at once: in court, in the press, and now through a takeover bid.

The backstory matters because both sides are telling opposing versions of the same history. Musk casts himself as the co-founder defending OpenAI's original mission — open, safe AI — against an organization he says betrayed it. OpenAI and Altman counter that the company's structure and decisions are exactly what allow it to keep developing its systems.

The $97.4 billion bid isn't likely to be resolved anytime soon. Its immediate effect is something else: it puts a concrete, public number into a debate that had, until now, played out mostly in the realm of principle. And it leaves OpenAI facing an uncomfortable choice, since any move toward becoming a for-profit company will now have to be weighed against a price a direct rival has already offered to pay.

Altman's refusal closes this chapter, not the conflict. With litigation still pending and a rejected bid now on record, the fight between the two co-founders over the direction — and now the ownership — of OpenAI is entering a noisier phase.