Musk’s Takeover Bid at Odds with Lawsuit, Says OpenAI

Image Credit: Reuters

Elon Musk’s attempt to purchase OpenAI is clashing with his lawsuit, where he argues that the assets of the ChatGPT creator should remain outside of private gain, according to a letter submitted by OpenAI to a federal court on Wednesday.

On Monday, Musk led a consortium of investors in offering $97.4 billion to acquire OpenAI’s nonprofit assets, marking another move against the artificial intelligence startup by the world’s wealthiest man. In August, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others, seeking to prevent OpenAI from transitioning to a for-profit entity.

In its letter to the court, OpenAI stated that Musk had contradicted himself by making "an improper bid to undermine a competitor." Musk’s legal filings argue that OpenAI’s assets must stay within a charitable trust and not be sold for private benefit, a stance that contrasts with his proposed acquisition, which would transfer OpenAI’s assets to him and his private investors.

Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit but left before ChatGPT gained widespread popularity in late 2022. He later founded the competing AI company xAI in 2023. OpenAI has expressed its desire to shift to a for-profit model in order to secure the funding necessary to develop advanced AI models.

Paraphrasing text from "Reuters" all rights reserved by the original author