The artificial intelligence company OpenAI officially turned down a $97.4 billion acquisition offer from a group of investors led by Elon Musk. OpenAI made a decision regarding Musk’s proposal public. Bret Taylor, Chairman of the OpenAI Board of Directors, stated that the company is not for sale and Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt competition was unanimously rejected. Taylor emphasized that any potential reorganization of OpenAI would strengthen our non-profit organization and our mission to benefit all of humanity through AGI. Based in San Francisco, OpenAI, the non-profit initiative behind ChatGPT, initially aimed to transition into a for-profit entity. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, described Musk’s offer as a tactic to stall. Altman sarcastically mentioned, “If you’d like, we can buy Twitter for $9.74 billion.” Musk expressed willingness to walk away from the OpenAI acquisition attempt as long as the non-profit nature of ChatGPT is preserved.

The issue of profit had been a point of contention. Elon Musk sued OpenAI, claiming it had abandoned its mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity without profit. OpenAI released a series of emails and messages supporting the notion that Musk had endorsed a for-profit structure for his AI initiative in 2017.