A group of investors led by Elon Musk is offering about $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, escalating a legal dispute with the artificial intelligence company that Musk helped found.

Musk and his own AI startup, xAI, and a consortium of investment firms want to take control of the ChatGPT maker and revert it to its original charitable mission as a nonprofit research lab.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly rejected the deal on Musk’s social platform X, saying, “no thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk bought Twitter, now called X, for $44 billion in 2022.

Musk and Altman, who together helped start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it, have been in a long-running feud over the startup’s direction since Musk resigned from its board in 2018.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the company last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good. Musk had invested about $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018, Toberoff has said.

Source: ARABNEWS