The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has announced a $97.4 billion takeover bid for OpenAI, the leading artificial intelligence research company behind the ChatGPT models.  

Musk’s unsolicited offer was disclosed by his lawyer, Marc Toberoff, who confirmed the report to The Wall Street Journal on Monday, stating Musk’s intent to restore OpenAI’s original mission. 

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens,” he said. 

According to The Verge, Musk’s takeover bid is backed by a powerful coalition of investors, including his own AI company xAI, Valor Equity Partners, Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC.

Musk co-founded OpenAI alongside Sam Altman in 2015 but left in 2018, before the company’s rise to prominence. Since then, he has expanded his electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla into a trillion-dollar enterprise and controversially acquired Twitter (now X) for $44 billion in 2022.  

OpenAI has not issued an official response to Musk’s bid. However, CEO Sam Altman posted a cheeky remark on X:  “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

The company recently appointed Nigerian investment banker Adebayo Ogunlesi to its board to provide counsel on navigating the infrastructure needed to advance its goal of making artificial intelligence benefit all humanity.