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Elon Musk Just Tried To Buy OpenAI for $97.4 Billion

Elon co-founded Open AI. Now he wants it back.

Jano le Roux
The Startup
Published in
5 min readFeb 11, 2025

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ChatGPT showing a prompt.
OpenAI

Everyone wants OpenAI.

Billionaires are circling. Investors are throwing cash. Deals are being made in the shadows.

Whoever wins gets to shape the future of AI — and make sure the rest of us play by their rules.

But is this real or is this just a classic Elon stunt?

How we got here

Back in 2015, Elon Musk and Sam Altman started OpenAI as a nonprofit — probably because they both had late-night worries about AI turning people into paperclips.

A few years later, OpenAI did what most tech startups do: pivoted to a for-profit model, raised billions from Microsoft, and put Altman in charge.

In an internal memo from 2018, OpenAI researchers reportedly debated whether shifting to a for-profit model would “inevitably attract corporate influence” that clashed with their original mission.

Back in 2017, Musk allegedly offered to fund OpenAI’s entire budget himself, but the team rejected the idea over concerns about centralized control.

Elon, meanwhile, got busy launching rockets, feuding with journalists, and making Teslas that occasionally mistook…

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The Startup
The Startup

Published in The Startup

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Jano le Roux
Jano le Roux

Written by Jano le Roux

An award-winning marketing consultant who helps high-growth brands craft marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing. Open to help—jano@likeflare.com—Join me ⤵️

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