Musk won’t chase OpenAI with his billions as long as it stays non-profit

Elon Musk was one of the founding members of OpenAI, but made a sour exit before ChatGPT became a thing. The billionaire claims he wasn’t happy with the non-profit’s pivot to a profit-chasing business model. A few days ago, Musk submitted a bid to buy OpenAI’s non-profit arm for $97.4 billion, but now says he will pull the offer if the AI giant abandons its for-profit ambitions.

“If (the) OpenAI board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the “for sale” sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” says a court filing submitted by the billionaire’s lawyer, as per Reuters.

Musk’s bid was surprising, though not entirely unexpected. Musk is currently entangled in a legal tussle with OpenAI, challenging the company’s shift to a for-profit structure. OpenAI is aiming to spin its AI stack into a business entity, while the non-profit arm will retain a small stake in the business division.

Swindler

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025

When news of the acquisition offer broke, OpenAI chief, Sam Altman, responded that they would instead like to buy X at one-tenth the value of Musk’s bid. In subsequent press interactions, Altman made it clear that the company was not up for sale, adding that it was just another tactic to mess with the company.

Old feud comes to a simmer

Interestingly, Reuters reported a few days ago that OpenAI hasn’t formally received Musk’s $97.4 billion bid to acquire its non-profit arm. Altman labeled the attempt as “ridiculous” and reportedly told OpenAI employees that the company would reject the offer.

But it seems this wasn’t Musk’s first attempt at a takeover. In a couple of lengthy official statements published recently, OpenAI claimed Musk wanted to eventually merge the AI upstart with Tesla and foresaw a for-profit model, too. Altman also told Axios two days ago that Musk has been vying to take control of OpenAI for a long time.

YUCK

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 11, 2025

“OpenAI is not for sale. OpenAI’s mission is not for sale – to say nothing of the fact that, like, a competitor who is not able to beat us in the market and you know, instead is just trying to say, like, ‘I’m gonna buy this” with total disregard for the mission is a likely path there,” Altman told the outlet.

Musk owns his own AI company called xAI and already has a ChatGPT rival called Grok out in the market. Speaking virtually at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Musk revealed that the latest version of xAI’s chatbot, Grok-3, is in the late stages of development with improved reasoning capabilities.

OpenAI has already teased its next-gen GPT-5 plans and says it will simplify the AI model strategy in the near future. The company is also working on in-house AI chips and the ambitious “Stargate” project worth $500 billion to boost AI development and help maintain US supremacy in the AI race.