Understand if Elon Musk will be able to buy OpenAI
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On Monday night (10), we were surprised with a purchase request from the team of investors led by Elon Musk for the purchase of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Among the reasons, he mentions that it is time for the company to “return to the open source world”, amid a change that has been taking place for almost a year. Understand all the chapters of this story and whether Elon Musk can really become the owner of OpenAI.
Understanding the case
Second publication of Wall Street Journal, a group of investors led by Elon Musk made a $97,4 billion (about R$550 billion) proposal to buy the OpenAI. the owner of X/Twitter would use the XAI, its artificial intelligence company, to mediate the purchase.
This comes after several public clashes between Sam Altman, who was also a good friend of Elon Musk when he founded the company that created ChatGPT. And, once again, Sam has come out publicly to comment on Elon Musk's movements. But it's worth remembering that this hasn't happened since February 10: in fact, Altman and Musk have been involved in several controversies since 2018, which culminated in Elon's departure from OpenAI.
History of clashes
The fight between Sam Altman and Elon Musk has been going on for a while now: in fact, the tech company leaders were actually very good friends. According to Musk, Sam Altman was one of the people who most encouraged him to invest in OpenAI when it was just an idea.
At the end of 2015, the OpenAI started its activities as a company that would not be focused on profit, but rather on developing technological innovations that would be accessible to everyone. But, as you can imagine, the money for the research and development of artificial intelligence technologies would have to come from somewhere. In 2020, Sam Altman closed a deal with Microsoft, which was and still is one of the company's largest investors at the moment.
Going back 7 years, to 2018, Elon Musk left OpenAI without explaining much about his reasons. It turns out that, in March 2024, he filed a lawsuit against the company with the justification that OpenAI was sold to Microsoft.
OpenAI Inc. has been transformed into a de facto, closed-source subsidiary of the world's largest technology company: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not only developing but also improving AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, not for the benefit of humanity.
Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI
Musk also mentions in the lawsuit that receiving the high investment made OpenAI a closed-source company and that an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) would be being developed with high risks to humanity. The lawsuit is still ongoing in court and has not been updated since then. And it doesn't stop there.
In January of this year, Elon Musk criticized the Stargate project, which foresees investments of up to US$ 500 billion dollars in artificial intelligence. In a post by Sam Altman announcing the initiative, Musk responded to the post saying that he has doubts about it working and that the money announced was not available as had been said in Altman's video, stating that "SoftBank has well under $100 billion secured. I have that on good authority."
Sam was clear: he didn't just deny it Elon Musk, as well as recalling the position that the owner of X holds in the Trump administration. In addition, he invited the owner of X to visit one of the headquarters of the Stargate project when it is ready, which is under construction in Texas:
Wrong, as you surely know. The project is great for the country. I realize that what is great for the country is not always ideal for your companies, but in your new role I expect you to put America first..
Sam Altman in response to Elon Musk.
Musk's proposal
So, we come to February 10, 2025. Around 18pm, a report from Wall Street Journal announced that a group of investors led by Elon Musk made a proposal to buy OpenAI for US$97,4 billion, around R$550 billion reais.
The most interesting thing is that this value is much lower than what the company is actually worth: according to the latest market analysis, OpenAI has a market value of US$ 157 billion, above that offered by Elon Musk's consortium.
Musk mentions that he wants the “OpenAI return to being an open force, focused on security and the common good.” In other words: he wants the company to return to having its code open, something that already happens with DeepSeek. This opens the door for new features to be developed by a team of independent developers to apply to their products and/or needs.
In addition to Musk and his company xAI, names like Vy Capital and well-known investors like Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood mogul who controls Endeavor, a holding company that controls brands such as UFC, and Jon Lonsdale, CEO of Palantir, a company that provides technology to the US government, are also part of the group of investors that made the proposal to Sam Altman.
Marc Toberoff, the lawyer who leads the consortium, says that the way OpenAI is currently operating is wrong and new ownership needs to take over the company immediately. He also says that the company's decision to become a non-profit brings problems to society.
If Sam Altman and the current Board of Directors of OpenAI intend to become a fully for-profit company, it is vital that the charity is fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from them: control over the most transformative technology of our time.
Marc Toberoff, the lawyer who leads the consortium that tried to buy OpenAI.
Sam Altman's response
An official statement from OpenAI and Sam Altman was never sent to the Wall Street Journal, but the CEO of the company that has become one of the symbols of the world of artificial intelligence took to his X profile to comment. See the post and translation below:
No thanks, but we'll buy Twitter for $9 billion if you want.
Sam Altman responding to Elon Musk's proposal to buy OpenAI.
Data from the Wall Street Journal states that, internally, the purchase proposal was immediately denied and, in fact, it was not even reviewed by the OpenAI board. Elon Musk went to his X profile to respond to Sam Altman with a pun between Sam's name and the word scam, which means fraud in English:
Can the purchase actually happen?
Market experts highly doubt that this can happen and this is not even connected with Sam Altman's negative response, but also with the moment that OpenAI is going through.
The company is moving from being a non-profit artificial intelligence research center to becoming a traditional, profit-driven company with generous CEO bonuses through a subsidiary. This could complicate plans already made and even put into practice.
So, in this process, several internal changes are happening in the company, in addition to projects like Sora, new ways to use ChatGPT, and more, are finally seeing the light of day after years of development. Ultimately, the low offer made by Elon Musk's board relative to OpenAI's market value became the least of the reasons the offer was rejected.
Next steps and expectations
With the denial and changes occurring, it is possible that the OpenAI continue working to remain a leader in the artificial intelligence market amid the advancement of DeepSeek, the Chinese AI which has been gaining more and more users.
A major comment from experts is that, by buying OpenAI, Musk would be able to once again be the focus of the technology that has had the greatest impact on our daily lives in the last three years. In the end, this would be more of a fight of ego than a purpose in helping humanity.
Despite being a great ally and even having financed part of the campaign that elected Donald Trump, Elon is being sidelined: he even participated in the presidential inauguration alongside names like Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg, but the CEO of Open AI was highlighted at the Stargate launch event and, little by little, became one of the poster boys for AI in President Donald Trump's administration.
In the technology market, there is also speculation that, in fact, Elon would be focused on using the name and assertiveness of the creator of ChatGPT to unite his efforts made at xAI, which has the Grok, Twitter's AI, as the main product. He even commented that he wants to do this one day:
Na XAI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We open source Grok and respect the rights of content creators. It's time for OpenAI to forever return to the open source, security-focused strength it once was. We will make it happen.
Elon Musk justifying the purchase of OpenAI on his X profile.
Another expectation in this case is that Musk would already be investing in a new bet in the technology market amid the low use of Grok. With the market led by ChatGPT and now the success of DeepSeek, Twitter's AI would be even more neglected, with users pointing out slowness and even hallucinations, a phenomenon in which artificial intelligences invent information.
How would you imagine a world in which Elon Musk would own OpenAI? Tell us in the comments below. Comment!
See also other features
With information: The Verge l Reuters l The Washington Post l Startups l Wall Street Journal
reviewed by Tiago Rodrigues in 11 / 02 / 2025
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