OpenAI board unanimously rejects Musk’s $97.4 billion takeover bid: ‘Not for sale’

OpenAI has rejected a $97.4 billion bid by Elon Musk to buy the company's non-profit arm. In a statement issued on X, Bret Taylor, OpenAI's chair of Board of Directors reiterated CEO Sam Altman's recent statements that ‘OpenAI is not for sale’ while adding that this is an attempt by Musk to ‘disrupt his competition’.

"OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition. Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity." Taylor was quoted as saying by OpenAI. 

Notably, Musk, backed by a group of investors, had submitted an offer to OpenAI's board of directors to buy out the non-profit arm of the company for $97.4 billion.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was”, Musk had said in a statement about the OpenAI bid.

Sam Altman calls Elon Musk insecure: 

In an interaction with Bloomberg, Sam Altman had outrightly rejected Musk's $97.4 billion bid, calling it an attempt to slow down OpenAI. Altman, who co-founded OpenAI with Musk, called the xAI boss ‘insecure’ and went on to say that he is not a happy person. 

"OpenAI is not for sale. The OpenAI mission is not for sale… I think he is probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor… He's working hard and and has raised a lot of money for xAI, and they're trying to compete with us from a technological perspective, from, you know, getting the product into the market and I wish he would just compete by building a better product" Altman said in the interview.

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy… I don't think he's like a happy person” the OpenAI CEO added.