Sam Altman leaves no room for doubts about his views on a attempt led by Elon Musk to take control of OpenAi. In a letter to OpenAi -Staff on Monday, the CEO has shocked the words 'bid' and 'deal' and said that the board of the startup is not interested in the offer.
“Our structure exists to ensure that no one can take control of OpenAi,” Altman wrote, according to two sources with knowledge of the letter. “Elon runs a competitive AI company, and his actions are not about the mission or values of OpenAi.”
Altman has also told employees that the board of OpenAi, on which he is sitting, does not yet have to receive an official offer from Musk and the other investors. If and when this happens, the board plans to refuse the bid according to the same sources. Internally, OpenAi employees responded to the news with a mix of fear and annoyance. Parts of Altman's letter were previously reported by The information.
A group of investors led by Musk surprised the technical industry on Monday when they announced an unsolicited offer to buy all OpenAI assets for an amount of $ 97.4 billion. The competing AI company of Musk, Xai, supports the bid, just like Valor Equity Partners, a private equity company run by one of the close advisers of Musk, Antonio Gracias. Gracias helped Musk advise on his deal to acquire Twitter in 2022 and was involved in his efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
“It is time for OpenAi to return to the open source, forever it was safety-oriented forever,” said Musk in a statement sent by his lawyer Marc Toberoff. “We will ensure that that happens.”
Musk has sued OpenAi several times for, among other things, to violate its original obligations as a non-profit by switching to become a profit motive. In addition to fighting back in court, OpenAi published a series of e-mails that claimed that Musk knew that OpenAi should become a profit motive to pursue artificial general intelligence and she tried to jointly jointly join the company with Tesla.
The fight between Musk and Altman puts a spotlight on OpenAi Board chairman Bret Taylor, who also led the board of Twitter during the takeover of the company by Elon Musk. That offer was theory easier in theory. Because Twitter was a public enterprise, the board had a clear fiduciary duty to maximize the return. Musk tried to withdraw from the takeover, but his advisers eventually convinced him convinced that it would not be possible, and he closed the original conditions. Taylor did not respond to a request for comment from Wired.
The structure of OpenAi is more complicated. Nowadays, the company is a non-profit with a subsidiary with a profit motive, but it is busy converting the for-profit arm into a company for public benefits, where OpenAi has to call its assets. OpenAi is currently appreciated at $ 157 billion based on the latest financing round. The company is in conversation with Softbank about leading an investment of $ 40 billion, which would yield the appreciation of the company up to $ 300 billion.
