After Musk Offer, Altman Says: 'I Feel for the Guy'

Elon Musk surprised the world of tech and business on Monday by engineering an offer to buy OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm behind ChatGPT. Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, immediately shot down the bid, but that is far from the end of things. The gist of coverage is that the complicated development is only the latest salvo in a decade-long feud between the two tech giants. Details:

• Altman: "I think he is probably just trying to slow us down," Altman tells Bloomberg from the sidelines of the Paris AI summit. "He obviously is a competitor," Altman adds. "I wish he would just compete by building a better product, but I think there's been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff, now this." At another point, he added, "I feel for the guy." (Watch the full interview.)
• Win for Musk? Just because Altman rejected the $97.4 billion offer out of hand doesn't mean the OpenAI board will do the same. "Either way, Musk wins," per Axios. "At a minimum, he makes life difficult for one of his most bitter rivals."

• It's complicated: Musk does indeed make things more complex for Altman, explains the New York Times Dealbook blog. Altman is in the process of converting the nonprofit OpenAI into a for-profit venture, he is close to wrapping up a $40 billion fundraising deal with SoftBank, and he is in negotiations on how much equity would be owed to Microsoft, its biggest investor. "Satisfying all those parties was already complicated," notes the Wall Street Journal. "If Musk's gambit increases the equity awarded to the nonprofit, it will be even more difficult."
• Their history: Altman and Musk were co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left three years later, the Telegraph recounts in detailing the feud. After the big launch of ChatGPT, Musk accused Altman of abandoning OpenAI's original charitable mission and has filed multiple lawsuits while forming his own rival startup, xAI. Musk also cast doubt on the massive Stargate venture announced by President Trump, which is designed to build infrastructure for OpenAI.
• Twitter callback: The current chair of OpenAI's board is Bret Taylor, who is quite familiar with Musk. Taylor was chair of Twitter's board when Musk first offered to buy the platform, then unsuccessfully attempted to get out of the deal, the Times notes. Because OpenAI is technically a charity, the board doesn't necessarily have to accept Musk's offer based on purely financial reasons.

(More Elon Musk stories.)