Elon Musk will drop OpenAI bid if it remains a nonprofit

Elon Musk will withdraw his $97.4bn bid for OpenAI’s nonprofit arm if the ChatGPT maker drops its plans to become a for-profit entity, the billionaire’s lawyers said in a court filing on Wednesday.

“If [the] OpenAI 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,” the filing said.

If not, “the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets”. Musk’s “serious offer” was for the furtherance of the charity’s mission, the filing said.

OpenAI and Musk, the CEO of Tesla and social media platform X, did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment outside regular business hours.

In 2015, Sam Altman and Musk jointly established OpenAI as a charitable organisation. However, Musk left over differences with Altman about the direction the company was taking. Altman then became CEO and launched a for-profit unit within OpenAI to secure funding from investors such as Microsoft.

Altman is now working on a plan to restructure the core business into a for-profit firm that will no longer be controlled by its nonprofit board. The nonprofit will, however, continue to exist and own a minority stake in the for-profit company. Musk has sued to prevent this transition.

Earlier this week, a Musk-led consortium offered to buy the nonprofit in his latest salvo to block the transition.

The nonprofit was not for sale, Altman said on Tuesday. OpenAI has said Musk’s bid clashed with his lawsuit that argues OpenAI’s assets should not be for private gain.

Reuters