Market Data 
- An Elon Musk-led group of investors wants to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion.
- “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk wrote.
- In a tweet, Sam Altman wrote “no thank you” and suggested OpenAI buy X instead.
Sam Altman and Elon Musk got in a back-and-forth on X on Monday over the latter’s $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI.
Musk and a group of investors, including his AI company X.AI, submitted the unsolicited offer to the OpenAI board on Monday. Marc Toberoff, a lawyer representing the group, confirmed the offer in a statement provided to Business Insider. The statement said the offer was for “all assets” of OpenAI, Inc.
“At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators,” Musk said in the statement. “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens.”
Backers of the bid — which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal — include Baron Capital Group, Inc., Valor Management LLC, Atreides Management, LP, Vy Fund III, L.P., Emanuel Capital Management, LLC, and Eight Partners VC, LLC.
Shortly after news of the bid broke, Altman appeared to respond in a post on X, writing: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk replied: “Swindler.”
Representatives for OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
