A group of investors led by Elon Musk has announced their intention to acquire OpenAI. The consortium of investors has made a $97.4 billion offer to buy all of OpenAI’s assets. The group has said it will match or exceed competing offers.
Sam Altman: “No, but you can offer $9.74 billion for Twitter”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to the offer with a “no,” jokingly writing on social media: “If you want, we’ll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion.”
Who are the investors backing Musk?
The following major investors are behind the offer:
Baron Capital Group Inc.
Valor Management LLC
Atreides Management, LP
Vy Fund III L.P.
Emmanuel Capital Management LLC
Eight Partners VC LLC
Some of the companies in this group have close ties to Elon Musk and have been involved in his previous projects.
Investor affiliations with Musk
Baron Capital Group — founded by Ron Baron and has a large stake in Tesla and SpaceX. Ron Baron runs the firm with his son Michael Baron.
Atreides Management — a Boston-based hedge fund whose founder Gavin Baker made an early investment in SpaceX. He also backed Tesla and Musk’s large compensation package.
Valor Management — a company founded by Antonio Gracias. He is an early SpaceX investor and a former Tesla board member. He also invested in Musk’s SolarCity.
Vy Capital — founded by Alexander Tamas and has invested in other SpaceX and Musk projects, including The Boring Company and Neuralink.
Eight Partners VC (known as 8VC) — is managed by Joe Lonsdale. He is known as one of Musk’s inner circle and a supporter of DOGE (Dogecoin). He recently gave an interview about Musk on CNBC, which Musk shared on his page.
How serious is this proposal?
It is not yet clear whether the group’s serious intentions are serious. According to some speculations circulating on the Internet, this proposal can be perceived more as trolling. Some observers see this move as Musk’s strategy to force Sam Altman’s team to increase the cost of acquiring OpenAI assets.
As you know, Musk originally founded OpenAI as a non-profit artificial intelligence research organization. He is currently trying to stop Altman’s plans to change the structure.
