As if Elon Musk doesn’t have enough going on, a consortium of investors led by him announced plans Monday for what appears to be a hostile takeover of OpenAI.
The investor group offered nearly $97.4 billion to buy all of OpenAI’s assets and is “prepared to consider matching or exceeding higher bids,” it said in a press release sent to TechCrunch.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman isn’t having it. He immediately replied on X, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
The consortium includes Baron Capital Group Inc., Valor Management LLC, Atreides Management, LP, Vy Fund III L.P., Emmanuel Capital Management LLC, and Eight Partners VC LLC.
While Emanuel Capital Management has a slimmer public profile, the others are firmly in Musk’s orbit.
Baron Capital Group, which manages multiple mutual funds, was founded by Ron Baron. The firm’s Baron Partners Fund, which he manages with his son Michael Baron, has large stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
Atreides Management is associated with Boston-based hedge fund Atreides. As we previously reported, founder Gavin Baker spent 18 years at Fidelity where he made his first investment in SpaceX. Atreides has also invested in Tesla and Baker was a public supporter of Musk’s enormous Tesla pay package.
Valor Management was founded by Antonio Gracias, an early SpaceX investor and former Tesla board member. He was also an investor in Musk’s SolarCity before Tesla acquired it.
Vy Capital, founded by Alexander Tamas, also has a SpaceX stake and has invested in a number of other Musk companies like The Boring Company and Neuralink.
Eight Partners VC is better known as Joe Lonsdale’s firm 8VC, according to public filings. Lonsdale is a vocal fan of Musk and runs in similar circles. He recently appeared on CNBC calling himself “a huge fan” of Musk’s DOGE, an interview that Musk reposted on X.
It’s not yet clear how serious this group is. One plausible analysis floating around the internet is that this is as much trolling as offer. Some say this is Musk’s attempt to drive up the price that Altman’s team would have to pay to buy OpenAI’s underlying assets in order to restructure it from its original nonprofit status.
Musk was part of the founding of OpenAI as a nonprofit AI research organization and Musk has been attempting to halt Altman’s restructuring plans.
