Elon Musk leads nearly $100 billion takeover attempt of OpenAI: A look at companies owned by him

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is spearheading a $97.4 billion offer to acquire OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in a potentially game-changing AI deal. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman swiftly turned down the bid on Musk’s platform, X.

“No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Altman wrote on X.

Musk and his own AI startup, xAI, and a consortium of investment firms want to take control of the ChatGPT maker and revert it to its original charitable mission as a nonprofit research lab, Associated Press reported citing Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff.

Altman’s rejection of the bid doesn’t necessarily mark the end of the takeover attempt. OpenAI’s board will play a crucial role in deciding the company’s future and could still consider a sale, particularly if the offer is raised.

1.       Tesla

Tesla is a US-based company specialising in electric vehicles, solar energy solutions, and battery storage for homes and automobiles. Although Musk was not a founding member of Tesla, he played a key role in its early growth by leading a funding round in 2004. He transitioned from a board member to CEO in 2008.

2.      SpaceX

In 2002, Musk established Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, with the goal of transforming space travel by creating spacecraft capable of carrying humans to Mars and beyond.

3.      The Boring Company

Musk founded The Boring Company in 2017. The infrastructure and tunnel construction company was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX but was spun off as a separate corporation in the year 2018. According to the information on its website, The Boring Company creates safe, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels.

4.      Neuralink

Musk is the owner and co-founder of Neuralink, a neurotechnology firm focused on developing implantable brain-machine interfaces. Its primary aim is to enable direct communication between the brain and digital devices while also assisting individuals with paralysis in regaining independence.

5.      X, formerly Twitter

In 2022, billionaire Elon Musk successfully completed his $44 billion (£38.1 billion) purchase of Twitter. He rebranded it a year later, changing the name from Twitter to X.

6.      xAI

xAI – launched by Musk in 2023 -- is a company working on building artificial intelligence to accelerate human scientific discovery, according to the information available on the official website.

Zip2, the first enterprise founded by Musk in 1995 and online financial services firm PayPal, that he co-founded, is no longer owned by him. Zip2 was acquired by Compaq Computer Corporation while eBay purchased PayPal.

Musk also helped start OpenAI in 2015, however, he resigned from the Board three years later.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the company last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab that would benefit the public good by safely building better-than-human AI. Musk had invested about $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018, Toberoff said, as per Associated Press.