OpenAI’s board of directors says it has unanimously rejected Elon Musk’s $97.4-billion takeover bid.
Bret Taylor’s statement, the chair of OpenAI board, said that “OpenAI isn’t for sale and has unanimously rejected Musk’s latest effort to disrupt his competitors.”
In a Friday letter to Musk’s lawyer, OpenAI attorney William Savitt said that the proposal was “not in the best interest of OAI’s mission and it is rejected.”
Musk, an investor in OpenAI, launched a legal campaign against ChatGPT nearly a full year ago. He sued for breach of contract, alleging that the company had betrayed the founding goals of a nonprofit organization he founded a decade earlier.
Musk, his AI startup xAI and a group investment firms made a bid on Monday to purchase the nonprofit which controls OpenAI. Musk elaborated on his proposal in a Wednesday court filing to buy the nonprofit’s majority stake in OpenAI, a for-profit subsidiary.
In a letter dated Friday, Savitt said that the filing “added new material conditions to this proposal.” It is clear that the ‘bid,’ which was widely publicized by your clients, is not really a bid. Savitt stated that the board unanimously rejected this bid “even when it was first presented”.
Musk claims in his lawsuit that companies have violated the terms of the foundational contributions he made to charity. Musk invested $45 million from the founding of the startup until 2018, according to his lawyer.
He escalated the dispute in late 2018, adding new defendants including OpenAI’s business partner Microsoft. He also asked for a court ruling that would stop OpenAI’s plans to convert more fully into a for profit business. Musk added xAI to the lawsuit, claiming OpenAI also unfairly stifled business competition. Musk’s request is still being considered by a judge, but he expressed doubts about Musk’s claims during a hearing in court last week.
