97 Billion Reasons Elon Wants OpenAI

Could there be 97 Billion reasons Elon Musk wants to acquire ChatGPT?

A group of investors led by the notorious Elon Musk said on Monday it has offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI.

Could it just be another burst to block Open AI from transitioning from a nonprofit to a for profit?

Musk's bid comes after a long running openly hostile exchange of words and often tweets between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk about the future of the ChatGPT.

Altman on Monday promptly posted on X: "no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."

Altman clarified his position in several media appearances on Tuesday morning, characterizing Musk's latest salvo as another one of his attempts to throw a wrench in the works at OpenAI.

The beef between Musk and Altman goes back to 2015, when the pair partnered (with others) to co-found OpenAI as a nonprofit. Musk cut ties with the company in 2018 but watched from the sidelines as OpenAI became a media darling in 2022 and 2023 following the launch of ChatGPT and then GPT-4.

Unlike many tech giants, such as Meta or Microsoft, OpenAI is not a publicly traded company.

Instead it has a complicated structure with involves a partnership between non-profit and for-profit arms.

Musk says he wants to return it to its non-profit roots and original mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity.

However Musk also owns a rival firm, xAI.