ChatGPT boss Sam Altman has turned down a $97.4 billion bid to take over his company, OpenAI, by a consortium of investors led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Recall that on Monday, Elon Musk said it had offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, in a move that comes months after he sued the artificial intelligence company.
In a statement, Musk, who founded OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018, said, “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force it once was.”
Marc Toberoff, Musk’s lawyer, also acknowledged that he presented the board with his offer for “all assets” of the tech company—a move that is likely to intensify long-standing tensions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
However, the $97.4 billion bid, which is meant to block the artificial intelligence company from transforming into a for-profit firm, has been rejected by Altman.
On Musk’s social media site X (formerly Twitter), Altman responded to the bid by writing: “No thank you, but if you want, we can buy Twitter for $9.74 billion.”