Sam Altman has made it clear OpenAI will not be selling to Elon Musk, calling him an unhappy person who operates from “a position of insecurity.”
The OpenAI CEO dismissed the $97.4 billion unsolicited offer for his company’s nonprofit portion from a group Musk-led investors as just another one of the Tesla founder’s antics.
“Elon tries all sorts of things for a long time. This is the latest—you know, this week’s episode,” Altman told Bloomberg TV in an interview Tuesday. “I think he’s probably just trying to slow us down.”
In another interview with Axios, Altman said that Musk has been angling for control of the company behind ChatGPT for some time.
“There’s been like versions of Elon trying to...somehow take control of OpenAI for a long time,” Altman said.
Musk has his own competing AI technology, xAI, which Altman claimed was the reason behind the bid. He then said he’d wish he’d just compete by “building better products.”
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Altman told Bloomberg. “I feel for the guy... I don’t think he’s like a happy person.”
OpenAI has announced a plan to separate its growing business from the nonprofit board that currently oversees it. But Altman said that the board has not yet come up with a valuation.
“There’s so much misreporting about what the board is planning to do here. I don’t think the narrative in the press is accurate across the board,” Altman said.
Altman immediately rejected Musk’s offer on Monday by trolling the billionaire X owner on his own social media platform.
“No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Altman wrote on X. He’s later clarified that OpenAi nor its mission are for sale.
Musk himself responded after the bid was denied, taking to X to call his nemesis “Scam Altman.” Musk’s attorney said the group was willing to match or go higher than any other bids.
“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation,” Musk said, “it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time.”
