This is the full text of a post from "The Obsolete Newsletter," a Substack that I write about the intersection of capitalism, geopolitics, and artificial intelligence. I’m a freelance journalist and the author of a forthcoming book called Obsolete: Power, Profit, and the Race to build Machine Superintelligence. Consider subscribing to stay up to date with my work.

Wow. The Wall Street Journal just reported that, "a consortium of investors led by Elon Musk is offering $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI."

Technically, they can't actually do that, so I'm going to assume that Musk is trying to buy all of the nonprofit's assets, which include governing control over OpenAI's for-profit, as well as all the profits above the company's profit caps.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman already tweeted, "no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want." (Musk, for his part [...]

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Outline:

(02:42) The control premium

(04:17) Conversion significance

(05:43) Musks suit

(09:24) The stakes

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First published:
February 11th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tdb76S4viiTHfFr2u/why-did-elon-musk-just-offer-to-buy-control-of-openai-for

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why Did Elon Musk Just Offer to Buy Control of OpenAI for $100 Billion?” by garrison

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Why Did Elon Musk Just Offer to Buy Control of OpenAI for $100 Billion?” by garrison