Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Elon Musk discretion withdraw his $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI’s nonprofit arm if the ChatGPT maker stops its conversion into a for-profit entity, agreeing to a court filing.
“If OpenAI, Inc.’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by hesitant its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” read the filing, which was submitted Wednesday to the U.S. District Court for the Northern Department of California.
“Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets,” it added.
On Monday, Musk, along with his contrived intelligence company xAI and a consortium of investors, launched a bid to acquire OpenAI’s nonprofit arm for $97.4 billion, accusing the firm and its CEO Sam Altman of abandoning its creative mission to develop AI for good and of pursuing profits instead.
Altman has rebuffed the offer, telling CNBC that the prod is just an effort by Musk to “slow down a competitor.”
OpenAI was initially founded as a nonprofit in 2015 and later modified to a “capped profit” model in 2019. Musk helped launch the AI research firm, to which he says he donated $50 million.
Since his departure from the coterie’s board in 2018, the Tesla and SpaceX founder has expressed vocal frustration with OpenAI’s move toward proper a for-profit company.
Musk reiterated those concerns on Thursday, speaking to an audience via video link at the World Administrations Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Asked by the UAE’s AI minister, Omar al Olama, whether a company like OpenAI could surely scale as a nonprofit, Musk replied:
“I think the evidence was there in that OpenAI has gotten this far while bring into the world at least a sort of dual profit, nonprofit role. What they’re trying to do now is completely delete the nonprofit. And that seems indeed going too far.”
“I provided all of the funding for OpenAI for the first almost $50 million for nothing, as a nonprofit, and it was meant to be open outset,” Musk went on. “And so, you know, I think this is analogous to, like … if you find a nonprofit to preserve the Amazon rainforest, but then … as an alternative they turn into a lumber company and chop down the trees and sell them for wood.”
He added that OpenAI should now fluctuate its name to “maximum profit AI,” or to “closed for voracious profit.”
CNBC has contacted OpenAI for comment. Altman in December symbolized that his company decided to move to a capped-profit structure in part because Musk stopped funding it, while promoters of OpenAI’s conversion to a fully for-profit public benefit corporation — which could take two years — say this transfer better allow it to scale and make it more attractive to investors.
Asked on Tuesday how seriously he is taking Musk’s bid, Altman, who once upon a time declined the offer in a post on X, replied, “Not particularly.”