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Elon Musk and a group of co-investors filed a nearly $10 billion nonprofit that controls OpenAI, which has led CEO Sam Altman to try to convert startups into for-profit entities. Trying to be complicated.
Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff said Musk’s startup XAI is a direct competitor to OpenAI, who submitted bids to the organization on Monday.
Altman is converting Openai to for-profit, and the company keeps its roots away from the roots of research organizations by tearing down its nonprofit. One of the main obstacles to the change is to establish fair value for nonprofits, controlling the company under the current structure.
Musk, co-founder of Openai, invested tens of millions of dollars in a fledgling company before leaving the board in 2018, said the conversion to for-profit, betrayed the startup’s founding mission.
He has filed lawsuits against Altman and Openai in an attempt to block the conversion and has now bid for $97.4 billion in nonprofit assets, including a controlling stake in OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary.
“It is crucial that the impact charities have made on their leadership has been quite compensated: controlling the most transformative technology of our time,” Toberoff said.
Altman said on social media site X that the Wall Street Journal first reported this approach, and soon, “No, thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want. Musk in 2022 It bought Twitter for $44 billion in annually and renamed it X.
One close to Openai said Musk’s bid was “purely publicity stunts” rather than a viable deal for the company.
“if [OpenAI] Say “it’s a promotional stunt” and we say “called our bluff.” CEO Ari Emanuel.
Last month, Toberoff called on Delaware and California prosecutors to force Openai to launch a competitive auction for a nonprofit that is at the heart of the company.
Instead of offering an external offer to nonprofits, Openai declined to comment on the bid. People close to the company previously said Musk’s efforts to force sales were only designed to cause “more chaos.”
“Openai doesn’t have to be sold,” said Ann Lipton, a law professor at Tulane University. “Nonprofit controls [OpenAI]Before this structure changes, it has an obligation to pursue its mission as a nonprofit. ”
She added, “Musk has no other way than to use soft persuasion.”
His proposal for the nonprofit is the latest Salvo in the long and painful competition between Tesla boss and Ultraman. The former collaborator is now competing to dominate AI, raising tens of thousands of dollars and building a wide range of data centers. Openai plans to develop $50 billion in AI infrastructure in the next few years through a SoftBank project called Stargate in the coming years.
Openai is a private group that is negotiating to raise new capital at a valuation of $260 billion, and has no obligation to sell nonprofits.
It also discussed the nonprofit entity’s valuation at about $30 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk’s lawyer believes that this number should be higher.
A higher valuation also means Musk’s spending is greater, and Musk’s donations to the company in his early years will be returned multiple times.
