Sam Altman Rejects Elon Musk’s $97.4 Billion Bid for OpenAI, Calls It a Competitive Disruption

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has firmly rejected a $97.4 billion takeover bid from Elon Musk, dismissing the offer as an attempt to "slow down a competitor" rather than a genuine acquisition effort.

Speaking at the AI Action Summit in Paris on Tuesday, Altman told CNBC that he does not take Musk's unsolicited bid "particularly seriously," adding, "I think it's to slow down a competitor and catch up with his thing, but I don't really know ... to the degree anybody does."

The bid, submitted Monday by Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff, seeks control of the nonprofit entity that oversees OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm behind ChatGPT. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 before parting ways in 2018, has publicly criticized the company for straying from its original mission and aligning too closely with corporate interests, particularly Microsoft.