Elon Musk To Withdraw $100 Billion Bid For OpenAI If It Remains A Nonprofit
Elon Musk stated that he will likely drop his bid to purchase OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, if it maintains its current structure operating as a nonprofit.
Musk initially announced on Monday that he was leading a group of investors offering to buy OpenAi for $97.4 billion, according to CNN. Just two days later the tech CEO announced he was planning on withdrawing his bid if the company decides to maintain their founding mission.
“If OpenAI, Inc.’s 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,” Musk said in a court filing.
“Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arm’s-length buyer will pay for its assets.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has not fully rejected Musk’s bid and stipulations, but he did question the rationale, accusing him of hypocrisy.
“In this Court, Musk argues that OpenAI, Inc.’s assets cannot be ‘transferred away’ for ‘private gain,’ OpenAI said in a legal filing.
“But out of court, those constraints evidently do not apply, so long as Musk and his allies are the buyers. Musk would have OpenAI, Inc. transfer all of its assets to him, for his economic benefit and that of his competing AI business and hand-picked private investors.”
“The independent Board’s sole fiduciary duty is to the mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity. Respectfully, it is not up to a competitor to decide what is in the best interests of OpenAI’s mission,” said Andrew Nussbaum, counsel for the OpenAI Board at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
OpenAI is operated by a nonprofit organization that controls a for-profit company called OpenAI LP. The for-profit company worked to get OpenAI valued at around $100 billion within just a few years.
Musk has filed multiple legal complaints against both OpenAI and Altman over claims that the company and the executives have misrepresented their work as philanthropic.
“OpenAI has gotten this far while having at least dual nonprofit/for-profit role. What they’re trying to do now is completely delete the nonprofit. And that seems really going too far,” Musk said.
“This is analogous to if you fund a nonprofit to preserve the Amazon rainforest but instead they turn it into a lumber company and chop down trees and sell them for wood, you’d be like: ‘Wait a second, that’s the exact opposite of what I donated the money for.’”
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
