‘Swindler, Scam Altman’: Elon Musk after Sam Altman mocks his $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI

A group of investors led by Elon Musk has offered to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI for $97.4 billion. How Sam Altman responded.

Published on: Feb 11, 2025, 09:02:41 IST

By Sanya Jain

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A group of investors led by Elon Musk has offered to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI for nearly $100 billion, marking an escalation in the old clash between the Tesla chief and the artificial intelligence company he co-founded. With the unsolicited bid of $97.4 billion, Musk said he hopes to return OpenAI to being “the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”

Tesla founder Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. (AFP file)

However, Musk may have a long way to go before he can control OpenAI, at least if company chief Sam Altman has a say in the matter.

Sam Altman mocked Elon Musk’s offer on the social media platform owned by Musk. “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” he wrote, taking a jibe at Musk’s takeover of Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and the company’s since-reduced valuation.

The post drew a sharp rejoinder from Musk, who wrote “Swindler” in the comments section.

This was followed by a video of Sam Altman the Tesla chief shared with the caption “Scam Altman.”

A brief history of the Musk-Altman feud

Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s rivalry, rooted in their conflicting visions for AI, has intensified over the years. Musk, a co-founder turned critic of OpenAI, has repeatedly attacked Altman, accusing him of prioritising profit over AI’s ethical development. Their feud escalated in 2023 when Musk launched his own AI startup, xAI, to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and further in 2024 when he sued OpenAI for its ties to Microsoft.

In 2025, their conflict took a political turn with Stargate, a $500 billion AI project announced by former U.S. President Donald Trump and Altman. While Trump praised Altman’s leadership, Musk dismissed Stargate as financially dubious and personally attacked Altman on X. Altman responded by questioning Musk’s motives, fuelling an increasingly public and politically charged AI power struggle.

(Also read: Elon Musk-led group offers $97.4 billion to gain control of Sam Altman's OpenAI)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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