Elon Musk offers to buy OpenAI for $97 billion

TheStreet’s Conway Gittens brings you the biggest news of the day, including Elon Musk’s big for OpenAI.

Transcript

00:00Two bitter rivals are fighting again over the soul and the future of artificial intelligence.

00:05Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has gathered together a group of his friends to

00:09make an unsolicited offer to buy OpenAI, the parent of ChatGPT.

00:15The price tag, $97.4 billion.

00:20The offer received a quick rejection and a ding from OpenAI's CEO.

00:24Sam Altman went directly to Musk's own social media company X and posted this response.

00:31No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.

00:36Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, now X, back in 2022, but the value has plummeted

00:42since he took over.

00:44There is no love lost between these two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

00:48Musk and Altman were co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, but the two could not get along.

00:54Musk left, sued, and started a competitor called XAI.

00:59Now comes this.

01:01There is speculation Musk is trying to derail the final stages of OpenAI's latest round

01:06of funding, a $40 billion dash for cash that would nearly double OpenAI's valuation to

01:12$300 billion in just four months.

01:15The timing further complicates things for Altman, who is in the process of transforming

01:20OpenAI from a non-profit company to a for-profit company.

01:25This unasked-for intrusion from Musk now ups the stakes even more for the most recognizable

01:32name in AI.

01:34Turning to markets, stocks are under pressure Tuesday as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome

01:37Powell testifies before Congress.

01:39He told senators the Fed does not have to be in a rush to lower interest rates given

01:45the health of the economy.

01:47Stocks are also down as President Trump slaps new tariffs on steel and aluminum.

01:52Other countries have vowed to retaliate with their own tariffs on American goods.

01:58That'll do it for your daily briefing from New York City.

02:00I'm Conway Gittens with The Street.