Openai’s board on Friday rejected a $97.4 billion bid by Elon Musk and an investor consortium, gaining control of the artificial intelligence company, between Musk and Openai’s CEO Sam Altman. deepened the feud.
In a statement, Openai Board Chair Bret Taylor said, “Openai is not on sale and the board unanimously rejected Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt the competition.” He mentioned Musk’s own AI company Xai.
Openai wrote to Mark Toberov on Friday. Musk and his lawyer representing investors bid, saying it was “not in the best interests of Or-I’s mission.” . ”
Musk and other investors made an offer Monday for the assets of the nonprofit that manages Openai. In the bid, Musk was interfering with plans that Altman had made to change the open corporate structure. Altman wants to shift management of the company to Openai investors, including Microsoft.
In a statement in The New York Times, Toberoff said: However, we are amazed to see the board, which has a strict fiduciary duty to carefully consider bids in good faith on behalf of charities.
Toberov claimed that the Open actually puts non-profit assets on sale. “They sell it to themselves with just a small portion of what the masks offer, and only enrich the members of the board,” he said, “of classic self-contract transactions. Not a charity.” He said, “Explain how someone benefits ‘all humanity’. ” he added.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk and Altman have been in conflict for years. Musk helped create Openai as a nonprofit organization in 2015, along with Altman and others. In 2018, Musk left the organization after a fight for control of the company. Altman then attached Openai to a commercial company, allowing him to raise the billions of dollars needed to build AI technology.
However, the nonprofit maintained control of the company. Last year, Altman and his colleagues began working on plans to shift the company’s management from a nonprofit to Openai investors.
Musk’s $97.4 billion bid could complicate that plan. To separate Openai from the nonprofit committee, Altman and his allies must compensate for it. Openai may, for example, pay a one-time fee to a nonprofit or give a minority stake to the company.
However, nonprofit assets are not valued. This was something Musk was trying to establish in his bid. His offer meant that Openai’s for-profit division had to spend more to gain independence from nonprofits.
Musk also filed a lawsuit in federal court last year to block Openai’s plans to rebuild.
California Attorney General and Democrat Robert Bonta said in an interview this week that the state is scrutinizing its open plan to move towards a for-profit structure.
“There’s a way to do it right. There’s a way to do it wrong, and we’re monitoring to make sure they do it right,” he says, and his office is also musk. He added that he is looking closely at him.
We are “watching over everything he does,” Bonta said.
When Musk fights the Open, he is also raising money for Xai. The startup that creates chatbots called Grok is in talks for a new funding round that could exceed $75 billion just two months ago.
The talks are in the early stages, they said, and it is unclear how much money will be collected. Bloomberg has previously reported consultations.
Like in December, Xai said it would raise $6 billion and use that money to build infrastructure and accelerate research and development. Investors such as BlackRock, Fidelity and Sequoia Capital participated in the funds.
(Times sued Openai and Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content related to AI Systems. Openai and Microsoft denied these claims.)
