Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman: The High-Stakes Battle Over OpenAI’s Future
Robert Duran IV
Founder and CTO @ Political Ai (Pi) | 105 Political Campaigns | 36 States
By Robert Duran IV | Article | February 13, 2025
The Billion-Dollar AI Standoff: A $97.4 billion bid. A threat to withdraw. A former ally turned adversary.
The ongoing battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over the future of OpenAI is no ordinary corporate dispute—it is a power struggle that could reshape the very foundation of artificial intelligence.
What began as a noble mission to ensure AI development remained ethical and beneficial for humanity has turned into an all-out war over control, ideology, and money. The recent revelation that Musk may walk away from his multi-billion-dollar bid if OpenAI continues its transition to a for-profit entity marks the latest chapter in a deep and complex history of friendship, betrayal, and corporate ambition.
But to truly understand how we got here, we must look back to the founding of OpenAI, the relationships that shaped its direction, and the falling out between Musk and Altman that has now led to one of the most consequential business battles in modern technology.
The Birth of OpenAI: A Grand Vision for Humanity
In December 2015, a group of Silicon Valley’s most influential figures came together with a shared concern—that artificial intelligence, if developed unchecked by corporate greed or government interference, could pose an existential threat to humanity.
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and several others co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit research lab with one primary goal:
To ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity rather than being controlled by a select few corporations or governments.
With initial funding of $1 billion, much of which came from Musk himself, OpenAI was meant to be an open-source alternative to AI research being conducted by tech giants like Google DeepMind. It was to be a neutral entity in the AI arms race, dedicated solely to the ethical advancement of machine intelligence.
At the time, Musk and Altman were allies, sharing a belief that unchecked AI development could be as dangerous as nuclear weapons. Their collaboration was built on mutual respect, with Altman serving as OpenAI’s public-facing executive, while Musk provided vision, funding, and influence.
However, cracks would soon begin to form in this idealistic partnership.
The First Rift: Musk’s Departure & Growing Tensions
By 2018, it became evident that OpenAI’s research ambitions were vastly outpacing its financial resources. Training cutting-edge AI models required computing power that only companies like Google and Microsoft could afford, forcing OpenAI’s leadership to consider alternative funding structures.
Musk, who had been funding OpenAI generously, grew frustrated with the lab’s lack of progress and increasing dependence on external corporate partnerships.
Additionally, he had concerns about Altman’s leadership and the direction OpenAI was taking. He believed that for OpenAI to compete with Google’s DeepMind, it would need far more resources and a more aggressive business strategy.
In early 2018, Musk made a bold offer—he proposed taking over OpenAI, integrating it into his ecosystem of companies (which included Tesla and SpaceX), and securing the necessary funding to scale its operations.
Altman and the rest of OpenAI’s board rejected Musk’s offer.
Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board shortly after, publicly citing a conflict of interest with Tesla’s AI development. However, behind closed doors, sources suggest Musk was deeply unhappy with the decision and felt betrayed by Altman’s unwillingness to let him take control.
With Musk gone, OpenAI faced its next major turning point.
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The OpenAI Pivot: From Nonprofit to Corporate Powerhouse
By 2019, OpenAI had made a controversial decision—it would no longer be a nonprofit research lab.
Instead, it restructured into a “capped-profit” entity, a move designed to attract billions in investment capital while still maintaining some ethical safeguards. This restructuring paved the way for Microsoft’s first $1 billion investment, giving the tech giant an unprecedented level of influence over OpenAI’s future.
With this move, OpenAI transitioned from a mission-driven research lab to a business with commercial ambitions.
It was during this time that Musk’s public criticisms of OpenAI began.
“OpenAI should be renamed ‘ClosedAI’ at this point,” Musk tweeted in 2020, pointing out how the company had moved away from its open-source origins.
In the years that followed, OpenAI’s GPT models became the most powerful and widely used AI systems in the world, leading to the explosive success of ChatGPT and securing multi-billion-dollar partnerships with Microsoft and other tech giants.
Meanwhile, Musk continued to voice concerns over the commercialization of AI, eventually launching his own rival venture—xAI—in 2023, with the goal of developing AI that aligns with his original vision for OpenAI.
The two former allies had now become direct competitors in the AI arms race.
The Final Clash: Musk’s $97.4 Billion Play & OpenAI’s Future
Fast forward to 2025, and the tension between Musk and Altman has reached its boiling point.
Last week, Musk made a shocking move—an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI and bring it under his control. The offer, if accepted, would effectively dismantle OpenAI’s existing board, cut off Microsoft’s influence, and return the company to Musk’s vision of an open-source AI research lab.
However, OpenAI’s leadership, including Altman, has been working for months to finalize its transition into a full for-profit company, which would allow it to raise even more funding and further cement its corporate structure.
The legal filing Musk submitted on Thursday was a clear ultimatum—if OpenAI’s board refuses to halt its for-profit transition, Musk will walk away from his bid, leaving OpenAI to its fate.
This presents three possible scenarios:
The stakes have never been higher.
The Bigger Picture: AI’s Defining Moment
This battle is about far more than just two men and one company—it is about who controls the future of artificial intelligence.
If OpenAI transitions into a corporate entity, it will further entrench AI development under the influence of trillion-dollar corporations, potentially leading to monopolization, regulatory concerns, and ethical dilemmas surrounding data privacy and algorithmic bias.
On the other hand, if Musk were to succeed in taking over OpenAI, it would signal a return to his vision—one that prioritizes open-source development and AI safety but still places a massive amount of power in Musk’s hands alone.
For now, the battle lines are drawn, and the world waits to see which side prevails.
One thing is certain: This is not just about business. It is about the future of intelligence itself.