Elon Musk consortium launches $97.4B takeover bid for OpenAI

A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk has offered $97.4 billion to purchase the nonprofit company OpenAI.  Musk, who wants to take control of the ChatGPT maker, has been at odds with OpenAI CEO and cofounder Sam Altman, who rejected Musk's offer.  Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit; however, the company is looking to become a for-profit entity, according to Reuters.   Altman told Bloomberg Television "OpenAI is not for sale. The OpenAI mission is not for sale." "I think [Musk] is probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor. I wish he would just compete by building a better product, but I think there’s been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff, now this," Altman said. According to Reuters, Musk filed a lawsuit against Altman and others in 2024 asserting that they violated contract provisions by placing profit ahead of the public good in the push to advance AI.  In November 2024, Musk asked a U.S. district judge for a preliminary injunction blocking OpenAI from converting to a for-profit structure. Musk's consortium includes his own AI startup xAI, Baron Capital Group, Emanuel Capital and others. The Wall Street Journal reports that xAI could merge with OpenAI following a deal. xAI recently raised $6 billion from investors at a valuation of $40 billion, according to Reuters. Bloomberg reported that OpenAI is currently engaged in a fundraising round that could potentially give the company a valuation of $300 million. The company was valued at $157 billion in October 2024.  THE LARGER TREND OpenAI has gradually made its way into the healthcare space.   In January, President Donald Trump, alongside Altman, announced the formation of Project Stargate an at least $500 billion investment to build the physical and virtual infrastructure to power AI construction, including "colossal data centers" and campuses nationwide in America, with one of its goals to improve health outcomes. Stargate includes three partners of the project: Oracle's Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison, Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.  Altman said he was thrilled to be part of the project and anticipates diseases will be cured at an unprecedented rate.  "We will be amazed at how quickly we are curing this cancer and that one and heart disease, and what this will do for the ability to deliver very high-quality healthcare, the costs, but really to cure the diseases at a rapid rate I think will be among the most important things this technology does," Altman said.  In April 2024, OpenAI and Moderna expanded their partnership to offer the pharma giant's employees access to ChatGPT Enterprise, a platform that allows customizable GPTs to be developed for a specific purpose.  Through ChatGPT Enterprise, users can create GPTs by beginning a conversation with ChatGPT then providing extra knowledge on a subject or giving it instructions. Users can also choose what the GPT can do, like analyzing data, searching the web or making images.  In 2023, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and AI safety and research company Anthropic established the Frontier Model Forum, a body that will focus on ensuring the safe and responsible development of large-scale machine learning models that are capable of surpassing the capabilities of current AI models, also known as frontier models.  The partners are looking for organizations to join the Forum as members. The members are charged with developing and deploying frontier models, show commitment to frontier model safety and be willing to contribute to advancing the Forum's efforts.  The aim is for members to focus on advancing AI safety research; collaborate with policymakers, academics, civil society and companies; identify best practices; and support developing applications that meet societal challenges, such as climate change, early cancer detection and combating cyberthreats.