Elon Musk ‘will abandon OpenAI offer if for-profit company plans dropped’

Elon Musk has said he will abandon his 97.4 billion dollar offer to buy the non-profit organisation behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.

“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,” lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday.

“Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”

Mr Musk and a group of investors made their offer earlier this week, in the latest twist to a dispute with the artificial intelligence company that he helped found a decade ago.

Mr Musk and his own AI start-up, xAI, and a consortium of investment firms want to acquire the non-profit’s controlling stake in the for-profit OpenAI subsidiary.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly rejected the unsolicited bid in a post on social media and told questioners at a Paris summit on AI that the company is not for sale. The chairman of OpenAI’s board, Bret Taylor, echoed those remarks at an event on Wednesday.

Mr Musk and Mr Altman helped start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it before Mr Musk resigned from the board in 2018.

Mr Musk again criticised Mr Altman’s management on Thursday during a video call to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, describing it as akin to a non-profit aimed at saving the Amazon rainforest becoming a “lumber company that chops down the trees”.

Mr Altman has repeatedly countered that Mr Musk’s legal challenges to OpenAI are motivated by his role as a competitor.

Mr Musk has asked a California federal judge to block OpenAI’s for-profit conversion on allegations ranging from breach of contract to anti-trust violations. The judge has expressed scepticism about some of Mr Musk’s arguments but has not yet issued a ruling.