Musk Proposes to Acquire OpenAI, Altman Dismisses as 'Nonsense'

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has repeatedly expressed his opposition to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, proposing to acquire OpenAI.

On the 11th (local time), Altman, in an interview with Reuters, dismissed Musk's acquisition proposal as "nonsense," saying, "I have nothing to say."

Altman claimed, "Our company is not for sale," and described it as "another strategy by him (Musk) to bother us."

In an interview with Bloomberg TV on the same day, Altman analyzed the background of Musk's surprise announcement, saying, "Perhaps he wants to slow us down." Altman downplayed Musk, stating, "He is an obvious competitor," and added, "I wish he would compete by making better products, but so far, there have been too many tactics, numerous lawsuits, and all sorts of strange things. It's still the same."

He further commented on Musk, "It seems his entire life stems from anxiety," and added, "I feel sorry for him. I don't think he's a happy person."

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Musk's lawyer, Mark Toberoff, submitted a bid to the OpenAI board the previous day for the assets of the non-profit organization. They wish to acquire a controlling stake in OpenAI for $97.4 billion.

Toberoff explained the justification for the acquisition proposal, saying, "If Altman and the current OpenAI board intend to become a fully profit-seeking company, it is important to receive fair compensation for the innovative technology of our time." In the acquisition proposal, Musk stated, "It's time for OpenAI to return to its former focus on safety as an open-source unit," and declared, "It must be so."

In response, Altman immediately targeted Musk, saying, "Thank you, but if you want, I'll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion." Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and renamed it 'X' last year.

Musk and Altman are known to have a long-standing feud.

Musk participated in the founding of OpenAI with Altman. OpenAI was established in 2015 as a non-profit research institute by Altman, Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and others, with the aim of creating safe and beneficial artificial intelligence (AI) for humanity without pursuing commercial profit.

However, Musk wanted strong control and open-source for public interest due to the risks of AI technology, while Altman wanted to accelerate AI technology development and pursue profit through it. Eventually, Musk resigned from the OpenAI board in 2018 and disposed of all his investment shares. After OpenAI released ChatGPT, he criticized the AI chatbot as politically biased and founded his own AI startup, xAI.

Additionally, Musk filed a lawsuit claiming that OpenAI abandoned its founding mission of creating 'AGI for humanity.' The court has not yet dismissed Musk's lawsuit, but it is still pending whether the commercialization of OpenAI will cause significant harm to the extent that judicial intervention is requested.

On the day after President Trump's inauguration last month, on the 21st, OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan's SoftBank announced a large-scale AI infrastructure investment plan called 'Stargate,' which will cost up to $500 billion, at the White House. President Trump was pleased with their investment, but Musk poured cold water by saying, "They actually have no money to invest."

Meanwhile, OpenAI recently completed a funding round of $6.6 billion and plans to transition from a non-profit organization to a for-profit company by 2026. The company's value is expected to reach $300 billion.

Kim So-yeon, Hankyung.com reporter sue123@hankyung.com