OpenAi questions justification for Elon Musk's bet to control the company

The Board of Directors of OpenAI questioned on Wednesday the justification of an offer of $ 97.4 billion of Elon Musk and others to obtain control of the high -profile artificial intelligence company.

On Monday, a consortium of investors led by Mr. Musk offered to buy the assets of the non -profit organization that controls the company, climbing a dispute between years between Mr. Musk and the executive director of OpenI, Sam Altman.

In a judicial presentation on Wednesday, the company said that Mr. Musk's offer contradicted legal claims that the billionaire made in a lawsuit filed against Openai last year. Operai argued in his presentation that Mr. Musk said in his demand that assets must remain with the non -profit organization and could not be transferred to another entity for public gains.

The company is essentially accusing Mr. Musk of hypocrisy. In his demand, he argued that Openai must be governed by the non -profit organization. Now, Openai argues that he is arguing otherwise.

The Operai Board has not yet formally rejected the offer.

Marc Toberoff, a Los Angeles lawyer who filed the lawsuit against Operai on behalf of Mr. Musk, said in a statement to New York Times on Wednesday: “The demand is not about who Openai controls. This is the misconduct of Sam Altman and OpenAi. “

If the OpenAI Board “is prepared to stipulate to take the signature of” for sale “of the assets of the beneficial organization in its so -called” conversion “, Musk will withdraw its offer,” Toboff added, referring to OpenI's efforts to separate of the non -profit control. “But, of course, OpenAi will never do that.”

The offer of Mr. Musk's consortium could still complicate Mr. Altman's efforts to separate the company from the non -profit board and raise the billions of dollars OpenAi need to build new technologies.

For more than a year, Mr. Altman and his colleagues have been working on a plan to change the control of the company of the non -profit organization to Openai investors, including Microsoft and the Investment Firm Thrive Capital.

Operai has been negotiating a fund collection agreement of $ 40 billion, led by the Japanese conglomerate Softbank. The new round values ​​of collection of OpenAi funds at $ 300 billion, according to three people with knowledge of the agreement that spoke on condition of anonymity.

The unusual corporate structure of the San Francisco company provided an opening so that Mr. Musk was interfering with that plan and makes OpenAi renewal more expensive.

To separate from the non -profit board, Mr. Altman and his colleagues must provide compensation. Operai could pay the non -profit organization a unique rate, for example, or give it a minority participation in the company.

However, the assets of the non -profit organization have not been given a value. Mr. Musk is trying to establish one, and his offer could mean that Openai's profit arm would have to spend more to obtain the independence of the old non -profit organization.

The clock is marking for Openai to change how it works. According to the terms of OpenAi's last investment round, you must keep the control of the non -profit organization company in less than two years. Otherwise, its financing will become debt, according to the documents reviewed by the New York Times.

(The Times has sued Openai and Microsoft, claiming the violation of the copyright of the news content related to ai systems. The two companies have denied the claims of the demand).

Mr. Musk's aggressive movement is the last one in a very personal fight with Mr. Altman who began 10 years ago as an association. They were part of the group that founded Openai as a non -profit organization in 2015, saying that they wanted to freely share their technologies with the world.

When Mr. Musk left the organization three years later after a battle for control, Altman attached OpenAi to a profit company to be able to collect the huge amounts of money necessary to build ai technologies.

At the end of 2023, the non -profit board suddenly fired Mr. Altman, saying that he no longer trusted him to build the benefit of humanity, which was one of the original principles of the non -profit organization.

He returned to the company in just five days and began stacking the Board with its allies, while exploring ways of separating control of the non -profit organization. If they cut the control of the non -profit organization, Mr. Altman and his allies believed that Operai would be more attractive to investors.

Before the offer that was made public on Monday, Musk also moved to block the changes in the OpenAI management structure with a lawsuit filed in the Federal Court last year.