A group of investors led by Elon Musk has offered to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI for US$97.4 billion, escalating a clash between the Tesla Inc chief executive and the artificial intelligence (AI) company he cofounded.
With the unsolicited bid, Musk said in a statement that he hoped to return OpenAI to being “the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”
In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on Musk’s X social-media platform: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for US$9.74 billion if you want.”
Photo: AFP
Musk acquired Twitter for US$44 billion, but its value later diminished, according to outside estimates.
The bid is being backed by Musk’s own AI start-up xAI, which could merge with OpenAI following a deal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
According to a statement from Marc Toberoff, a lawyer representing the investors, other backers of the proposal include Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC and Ari Emanuel, through his investment fund.
It is difficult to determine how serious Musk’s bid is and what his motivation was for making it, Telluride Legal Strategies LLC founder Rob Rosenberg said.
Even if it is not successful, Musk’s move could potentially complicate OpenAI’s effort to transition from being a nonprofit entity into a multibillion-dollar for-profit AI giant — a transformation Musk has opposed.
“I think he’s trying to make a statement and bring more attention to the fact that OpenAI is still on this course to switch from being a nonprofit to a for-profit company,” Rosenberg said.
In the statement, Toberoff indicated one motivation for the bid: to place outside pressure on OpenAI while it determines a value for parts of its business while transitioning to a for-profit entity.
“That value cannot be determined by insiders negotiating on both sides of the same table,” he wrote. “After all, the public is OpenAI Inc’s beneficiary, and a sweetheart deal between insiders does not serve the public interest.”
Musk and Altman have been locked in a long-standing feud over the direction that OpenAI has taken since its founding. Musk has alleged that the start-up has abandoned all pretense of proceeding as a charity to benefit humanity with a focus on openness and safety.
OpenAI has rejected that characterization, and last year said that Musk was lashing out after an earlier failed attempt to make the company part of his automaker Tesla.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be
RSS