OpenAI CEO rejects Musk-led group’s $97.4 billion offer

A group of investors led by Elon Musk says it is offering about $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, escalating a legal dispute with the artificial intelligence company that Musk helped found.

Musk and his own AI startup, xAI, and a consortium of investment firms want to take control of the ChatGPT maker and revert it back to its original charitable mission as a nonprofit research lab, according to Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly rejected the deal on Musk's social platform X, saying, “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Musk bought Twitter, now called X, for $44 billion in 2022.

Along with Musk and xAI, others backing the bid announced Monday include Baron Capital Group, Valor Management, Atreides Management, Vy Fund, Emanuel Capital Management and Eight Partners VC.

Musk and Altman, who together helped start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it, have been in a long-running feud over the startup's direction since Musk resigned from its board in 2018.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good.

Musk had invested about $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018, Toberoff said in court last week.