To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories, we're happy to send you some reminders

Click 'OK' then 'Allow' to enable notifications

Elon Musk issues one-word reply to Sam Altman's $9,740,000,000 counter offer to 'buy Twitter'
  1. Home
  2. > News

Elon Musk issues one-word reply to Sam Altman's $9,740,000,000 counter offer to 'buy Twitter'

The tech moguls could see their longstanding feud end up in court

Elon Musk has issued a one-word reply to Sam Altman’s $9.74 billion counter offer to ‘buy Twitter’.

The tech moguls are beefing after Musk made Altman an offer to purchase OpenAI.

However, the feud goes back much longer after the pair co-founded the firm back in 2015, but Musk left before ChatGPT took off in 2022.

Elon Musk and Sam Altman have a longstanding feud (Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
Elon Musk and Sam Altman have a longstanding feud (Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)

While OpenAI was first launched as a non-profit, it is currently transitioning over to a for-profit model, something that Musk is firmly against.

He previously said: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.

“We will make sure that happens.”

Last October, OpenAI was valued at $157 billion, but the Tesla boss has offered to buy the company for $97.4 billion.

And it doesn’t seem to have impressed Altman, who took to Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to respond.

He said: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Musk, who bought Twitter back in 2022 for $44 billion, was quick to fire back, calling Altman a ‘swindler’.

It doesn’t seem like the pair’s feud is going to slow down anytime soon after Musk sued both OpenAI and Altman in 2024.

In the lawsuit, Musk accused them of going back on promises to develop AI carefully and make it freely available.


He also claimed that they were breaching a contract by making the move towards profit.

The request by Musk for a court order to block OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company has not yet been ruled on by a judge.

However, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has said that she would not block the case from going to a jury trial.

The SpaceX CEO launched xAI as a direct rival to OpenAI in March 2023.

He’s also been critical of the $500 billion OpenAI-led project that was announced by Trump at the White House.

The aim for the project is to fund infrastructure for artificial intelligence in order to beat rival nations in the development of AI technology.

Trump revealed that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle would create a joint venture called Stargate.

As Stargate, the group intends to build data centers, which will also create more than 100,000 jobs in the US.

While Musk isn’t a fan of the idea, it doesn’t seem to have caused any rift between him and Trump, after he took on the role of head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Featured Image Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair