On Friday, the board of directors of Openi rejected an offer of $ 97.4 billion by Elon Musk and a consortium of investors to obtain control of the artificial intelligence company, deepening a feud between Musk and the CEO of Openi , Sam Altman.
In a statement, Bret Taylor, president of the Board of Directors of Openi, said: “Openai is not on sale and the Council has unanimously rejected the last attempt by Mr. Musk to stop competition”. Mr. Taylor referred to the company Ai del Mr. Musk, Xai.
Openi sent a letter on Friday to Marc Toberoff, the lawyer who represents Mr. Musk and the investors who made the offer, stating that the offer was not “in the best interest of OAI’s mission”, which is to build An artificial intelligence for the benefit of “all humanity.”
Musk and other investors made their offer on Monday for the non -profit activities that controls Openi. With the offer, Mr. Musk was intruding in a plan that Mr. Altman made to change the company structure of Openi. Altman hopes to move the company’s control to Openi’s investors, including Microsoft.
Toberoff declared in a statement to the New York Times: “This is not surprising, given that the president of Altman and the president of the board of directors has already rejected the offer of $ 97 billion in Musk while claiming they had not yet received it. But we are surprised to see the Board of Directors, which has rigorous fiduciary duties to carefully consider the offer in good faith on behalf of charity, use the same type of double altman, give a deflective one used to testify to the Senate. “
Toberoff insisted on the fact that Opens actually actually putting on sale of non -profit activities. “They are only selling it to themselves in a fraction of what Musk has offered, enriching the members of the Council,” he said, “rather than charity in a classic self-denial transaction”. He added: “Can anyone please explain how this benefit of” all humanity “?”
Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to a commentary request.
Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman are in contrast for years. Musk contributed to creating Opens as a non -profit organization in 2015, together with Mr. Altman and others. In 2018, Musk left the organization after a battle for the company’s control. Altman then attached Openi to a profit for profit in order to collect the billions of dollars needed to build artificial intelligence technologies.
The non -profit, however, has maintained control of the company. Last year, Altman and his colleagues started working on a plan to move the company’s control from non -profit to Openi investors.
Musk’s $ 97.4 billion offer could complicate that plan. To separate Openi from the non -profit council, Mr. Altman and his allies must compensate for him. Openi could pay a one -off commission to the non -profit, for example, or give it a minority participation in society.
But non -profit activities did not receive a value, which was what Mr. Musk was trying to establish with his offer. His offer meant that Openi’s lucal arm should have spent more to obtain independence from non -profit.
Last year Musk also filed a case at the Federal Court to block Openi’s plans to renovate.
Robert Bonta, California General Prosecutor and a Democrat, said this week in an interview that the state was examining Openi’s plan to move on to a profit for profit.
“There is a way to do it well. There is a way to make mistakes and we are monitoring us to make sure they do it well, “he said, adding that his office was also looking closely at Mr. Musk.
We are “monitoring everything he does,” said Bonta.
While Mr. Musk Battles Openai, he is also raising funds for XAI. The start-up, which makes a chatbot called Grok, is in negotiations for a new financing round that could values it up to $ 75 billion, compared to about $ 40 billion only two months ago, said two people with knowledge of the discussions.
The interviews are in the early stages, they said, and it is not clear how much money will be collected. Bloomberg previously reported the talks.
Recently in December, Xai had collected $ 6 billion, saying that he would use the money to build infrastructures and accelerate research and development. Blackrock, Fidelity, Sequoia Capital and other investors participated in the loan.
(The Times sued Openii and Microsoft for violation of the copyright of news content relating to artificial intelligence systems. Openai and Microsoft denied these statements.)