OpenAI's board 'unanimously' rejects Elon Musk's $97.4 billion takeover bid

Elon Musk launched a $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI. The Wall Street Journal reported a group of investors led by Musk's xAI submitted an unsolicited offer to the company's board of directors on Monday. The group wants to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI's for-profit arm. 

When asked for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson pointed Engadget to an X post from CEO Sam Altman. "No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want," Altman wrote on the social media platform Musk owns. 

On Friday, OpenAI's board of directors officially rejected Musk's bid. "OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition," the company said in a response attributed to Bret Taylor, the chair of OpenAI's board of directors. "Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity." 

Taylor, incidentally, was the chairman of Twitter's board before Musk bought the social media platform for $44 billion in 2022. 

"It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was," Musk said in a statement his attorney shared with The Journal. "We will make sure that happens."

OpenAI

It's hard to say how serious this bid from Musk is and what — if any — chance it has to succeed. OpenAI is not a traditional company, and the nonprofit structure Sam Altman and others at the company want it to get away from may in fact protect it from Musk's offer. Were OpenAI a for-profit company with publicly traded shares Musk's bid would likely trigger what's known in corporate law as a Revlon moment, where, under certain circumstances, the company's board of directors would be forced to sell to the highest bidder to maximize shareholder profits.  

Update 02/14 4:34PM ET: Added response from OpenAI's board of directors. 

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