OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took a swipe at Elon Musk on Tuesday after reports surfaced that the Tesla CEO had offered $97.4 billion to acquire OpenAI’s assets. Altman accused Musk of operating from a “position of insecurity.”
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Altman said during an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Paris AI Summit. “I feel for the guy. I don’t think he’s a happy person,” he added, as cited by The New York Post and The Hill.
Reiterating that OpenAI is “not for sale,” Altman dismissed Musk’s bid as a disruptive tactic. “The company is not for sale. It’s another one of his tactics to try to mess with us,” he stated. When asked about Musk’s intentions, he speculated, “He’s probably just trying to slow us down.”
On Monday, The New York Times reported that Musk, along with a group of investors, had made an unsolicited bid to acquire OpenAI’s assets. In response, Altman mocked the offer on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk fired back, calling Altman a “swindler.”
According to The New York Post, Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff confirmed that several prominent investors backed Musk’s offer, including 8VC (Joe Lonsdale), Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, and Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel.
In a statement, Musk said it was “time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that OpenAI has yet to review Musk’s bid. The offer comes as OpenAI is working to finalize a $40 billion funding round led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, which is expected to boost the company’s valuation to $300 billion.
If successful, the deal would place OpenAI among the most valuable private companies in the world, alongside Musk’s SpaceX and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.