Founder waves goodbye

Musk group wants to take control of OpenAI

A group led by Elon Musk has submitted an offer to take over the company OpenAI.

(Bild: AFP)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has firmly rejected a takeover bid worth almost 100 billion dollars (97 billion euros) from a group of investors led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. "OpenAI is not for sale," Altman told the Bloomberg news agency at the AI Summit in Paris. "I think he's probably just trying to slow us down." Elon Musk is a competitor with his company X.ai.

"I wish he would just compete by building a better product." Instead, Musk relies on "tactics, lots and lots of lawsuits and all sorts of other crazy things".

Altman reacted with derision
Altman had previously reacted mockingly to Musk's online platform X. "No thanks," he wrote. But Musk would buy Twitter for 9.74 billion dollars if he wanted to. The tech billionaire had paid around 44 billion dollars for the short message service Twitter, the basis of X, in 2022. OpenAI did not comment beyond this. Musk's response to Altman on X came quickly and was brief: "fraud"

Attack on the restructuring of OpenAI
OpenAI is in the process of changing its structure and transforming itself into a for-profit company. Musk, once a co-founder of OpenAI, is already fighting the start-up in court to prevent this. Among other things, he is claiming that he was defrauded when he left the company.

The investor group is bidding for the non-profit organization that previously controlled OpenAI. The original goal of OpenAI was to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. Altman also founded a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 to raise money from investors such as Microsoft. Now OpenAI as a whole is to become a profit-oriented company. Some former employees have warned that this step could increase the risks involved in AI development.

According to media reports, OpenAI is currently in talks with investors such as Microsoft about what share of the profit-oriented company they will receive. Microsoft had invested billions in OpenAI, giving the start-up access to enormous computer resources. In return, Microsoft gained access to OpenAI's AI technology and integrated it into its software products.

Musk lawyer: will outbid counter-offers
In addition to Musk's own AI company xAI, several financial investors are participating in the offer, according to the Wall Street Journal. Musk's lawyer told the newspaper that the group was prepared to outbid any competing bid.

According to media reports, OpenAI was also recently in talks with investors about a new financing round with a volume of up to 40 billion dollars. OpenAI is aiming for a total valuation of 300 billion dollars, wrote the Wall Street Journal. The Japanese technology group Softbank wants to invest between 15 and 25 billion dollars.

Softbank is also a partner of OpenAI in the Stargate project presented by Donald Trump to build AI data centers in the USA. According to the announcement, they intend to invest up to 500 billion dollars. Musk, who became a close confidant of Trump, later claimed that OpenAI and Softbank did not have that much money.

A good two years ago, the AI chatbot ChatGPT triggered a hype around artificial intelligence - with expectations ranging from almost unlimited possibilities in the digital world to fears of the extinction of humanity.