’I feel for the guy, not a happy person’: Sam Altman takes dig at Elon Musk over OpenAI bid

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, criticised Elon Musk on Tuesday for allegedly offering to pay USD 97.4 billion to purchase the artificial intelligence startup's assets. Altman accused Musk of behaving from a "position of insecurity."

In an interview with Bloomberg Television on the fringes of the Paris AI Summit, Altman stated, "It's likely that he has lived his entire life in a state of insecurity." "I sympathize with the man. In remarks quoted by the New York Post and the Hill, among other US outlets, he continued, "I don't think he's a happy person."

According to the New York Post, Altman reaffirmed that OpenAI is "not for sale" after Musk and a group of investors made an unsolicited offer. "The company is not for sale. It's another one of his tactics to try to mess with us," Altman stated.

In a Bloomberg Television interview, when asked about Musk's intentions with the deal, OpenAI CEO Altman said, "He's probably just trying to slow us down."

The New York Times said on Monday that a consortium of investors, led by Musk, has bid USD 97.4 billion to buy OpenAI's assets. Altman responded to the X offer by joking, "No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."

In response, Musk referred to Altman as a "swindler."

Marc Toberoff, Musk's lawyer, told the New York Post that Musk has gotten support from a number of well-known investors, including Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and venture firms like Joe Lonsdale's 8VC, Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, and Vy Capital.

According to the journal, Musk stated in a statement that it was "time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force it once was."

OpenAI vs Elon Musk

Notably, in 2015, to challenge Google's hegemony in the AI space, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others established OpenAI as a non-profit. But Musk then quit the company because he didn't agree with the AI startup, and Altman became the new CEO.

OpenAI established a for-profit business in 2019 so that it might attract investors like Microsoft. With a stake in the new company, the non-profit is currently trying to transition ChatGPT to a fully for-profit organization.

Musk has also sued OpenAI multiple times in recent years, and he added Microsoft to the list late last year.

-With agency inputs