伊隆·马斯克牵头出价 974 亿美元收购 OpenAI 控制权
【中美创新时报2025 年 2 月 10 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）据两位知情人士透露，伊隆·马斯克牵头的一群投资者已出价 974 亿美元收购控制 OpenAI 的非营利组织的资产，马斯克和 OpenAI 首席执行官 Sam Altman 之间关于人工智能未来的长达数年、非常私人的争斗由此升级。《纽约时报》记者Mike IsaacCade Metz 和 David A. Fahrenthold对此作了下述报道。
这位亿万富翁带领一群投资者发起了这项未经请求的收购要约，这让这家初创公司筹集更多资金的计划变得复杂。
据两位知情人士透露，伊隆·马斯克牵头的一群投资者已出价 974 亿美元收购控制 OpenAI 的非营利组织的资产，马斯克和 OpenAI 首席执行官 Sam Altman 之间关于人工智能未来的长达数年、非常私人的争斗由此升级。
据知情人士透露，该财团包括 Vy Capital 和马斯克的人工智能公司 Xai，以及好莱坞权力掮客 Ari Emanuel 和其他投资者。由于谈判仍在进行中，这些知情人士要求匿名。
《华尔街日报》早些时候报道了该收购要约的消息。
收购 OpenAI 是马斯克对他近 10 年前帮助创建的组织的最新、也许是最大胆的攻击。它面临着巨大的成功：OpenAI 的董事会与 Altman 关系密切，而这位首席执行官很快就嘲笑了马斯克的收购要约。
“不用了，但如果你愿意，我们可以以 97.4 亿美元收购 Twitter，”Altman 在 X 上说道，他指的是马斯克社交媒体平台的旧名称。
“骗子，”马斯克回答道。
据一位熟悉 OpenAI 潜在回应的人士称，OpenAI 尚未看到该收购要约。马斯克的主动报价可能会使 OpenAI 完成 400 亿美元融资交易的努力变得复杂，这笔交易将使这家备受瞩目的公司的估值比四个月前增长近一倍。
据三位不愿透露姓名的知情人士透露，由日本企业集团软银牵头的新一轮融资对 OpenAI 的估值为 3000 亿美元。这笔交易将使 OpenAI 成为世界上最有价值的私营公司之一，与马斯克的火箭公司 SpaceX 和 TikTok 的制造商字节跳动齐名。
知情人士说，软银将向 OpenAI 投资高达 400 亿美元，其他投资者将提供约四分之一的总资金。 （《纽约时报》起诉 OpenAI 及其合作伙伴微软，声称它们侵犯了与人工智能系统相关的新闻内容的版权。这两家公司否认了诉讼的指控。）
马斯克的出价可能会减缓 Altman 和其他 OpenAI 高管为之努力了一年多的公司转型。
马斯克、Altman 和其他几位企业家和研究人员于 2015 年底成立了非营利组织 OpenAI，称他们希望与世界自由分享他们的技术。三年后，在争夺控制权的斗争之后，马斯克离开了该组织，Altman 将 OpenAI 并入了一家营利性公司，以便筹集开发人工智能技术所需的巨额资金。
但非营利组织董事会以一种不寻常的方式继续控制着 OpenAI。2023 年底，董事会突然解雇了 Altman，称不再相信他能为人类的利益开发人工智能——这是非营利组织最初的原则之一。但这次罢免只持续了五天。
回归后，奥特曼和他的同事开始探索如何切断非营利组织对公司的控制权。他还开始在 OpenAI 董事会中安插盟友，为阻止其他试图从他手中夺取控制权的努力提供保障。
OpenAI 的结构非常复杂——马斯克的出价表明他了解它的弱点。为了脱离非营利组织董事会，奥特曼和他的同事必须对其进行补偿：例如，OpenAI 可能会向非营利组织支付一次性费用，或给予其少数股权。
尽管 OpenAI 拥有 2,000 多名员工，但控制它的非营利组织只有两名员工和 2200 万美元现金和其他资产。马斯克先生和他的投资者愿意为它支付数十亿美元的原因在于它对 OpenAI 拥有合法控制权。
但非营利组织的资产尚未被赋予价值——而这正是马斯克先生试图通过他的新出价建立的。他的出价可能意味着 OpenAI 的营利部门将不得不花费更多才能从非营利组织中获得独立。
“如果 Sam Altman 和现任 OpenAI Inc. 董事会打算成为一家完全营利的公司，那么慈善机构必须得到公平的补偿，以弥补其领导层从它手中夺走的东西：对我们这个时代最具变革性的技术的控制权，”去年代表马斯克先生对 OpenAI 提起诉讼的洛杉矶律师 Marc Toberoff 在给《纽约时报》的一份声明中表示。
加州大学洛杉矶分校非营利法研究高级学者艾伦·P·阿普里尔 (Ellen P. Aprill) 曾撰写大量有关 OpenAI 的文章，她表示，OpenAI 非营利组织的董事会有责任以公平的市场价格出售其资产。她说，马斯克的报价现在似乎将这个价值定得非常高。如果该非营利组织接受 OpenAI 营利部门的较低价格，它可能不得不向州慈善监管机构解释为什么拒绝了更高的出价。
“这对当前计划来说是一个巨大的复杂因素，”她补充道。
将 OpenAI 资产从非营利组织转移到营利部门的提议已经受到特拉华州（OpenAI 注册地）和加利福尼亚州（公司总部所在地）的州慈善监管机构的审查。
马斯克现在是特朗普总统最亲密的顾问之一，他于 2023 年创建了自己的人工智能公司，与 OpenAI 正面竞争。尽管这家名为 Xai 的公司一直在慢慢追赶众多人工智能初创企业和科技巨头，但阿尔特曼在华盛顿已经能够智胜马斯克。
特朗普就职后的第二天，他支持 OpenAI、软银和软件公司甲骨文斥资 1000 亿美元建设新数据中心的计划。特朗普称这项计划是“迄今为止历史上最大的人工智能基础设施项目”。
周一，当马斯克发出录用通知时，阿尔特曼正在巴黎参加一个人工智能会议，其他科技和政治领袖也出席了会议，其中包括法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙和副总统 JD 万斯。
题图：伊隆·马斯克上个月在华盛顿美国国会大厦出席特朗普总统就职典礼。图片来源：Kenny Holston/纽约时报
附原英文报道：
Elon Musk Leads $97.4 Billion Bid to Control OpenAI
The billionaire is leading a group of investors in the unsolicited offer, which complicates the start-up’s plan to raise more money.
Elon Musk at President Trump’s inauguration at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington last month.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
By Mike IsaacCade Metz and David A. Fahrenthold
Reporting from San Francisco
Feb. 10, 2025
A group of investors led by Elon Musk has made a $97.4 billion bid to buy the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, according to two people familiar with the bid, escalating a yearslong, deeply personal tussle for the future of artificial intelligence between Mr. Musk and OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman.
The consortium includes Vy Capital and Xai, Mr. Musk’s artificial intelligence company, as well as the Hollywood power broker Ari Emanuel and other investors, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are ongoing.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported news of the offer.
The bid for OpenAI is Mr. Musk’s latest and perhaps most audacious attack on an organization that he helped create almost 10 years ago. It faces long odds: OpenAI’s board of directors is closely allied with Mr. Altman, and the chief executive quickly mocked Mr. Musk’s bid.
“No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Mr. Altman said on X, referring to the old name for Mr. Musk’s social media platform.
“Swindler,” Mr. Musk replied.
OpenAI has not yet seen the bid, according to a person familiar with OpenAI’s potential response. Mr. Musk’s unsolicited offer could complicate OpenAI’s attempt to complete a $40 billion fund-raising deal that would nearly double the high-profile company’s valuation from just four months ago.
The new fund-raising round, led by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, values OpenAI at $300 billion, according to three people with knowledge of the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The deal would make OpenAI one of the most valuable private companies in the world, along with Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, and ByteDance, the maker of TikTok.
SoftBank would invest up to $40 billion in OpenAI, with other investors providing about a quarter of the total funds, the people said. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims.)
Mr. Musk’s bid could slow a company transition that Mr. Altman and other OpenAI executives have been working on for more than a year.
Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman and several other entrepreneurs and researchers founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in late 2015, saying they wanted to freely share their technologies with the world. When Mr. Musk left the organization three years later after a battle for control, Mr. Altman attached OpenAI to a for-profit company so he could raise the enormous amounts of money needed to build A.I. technologies.
But the nonprofit board, in an unusual arrangement, continued to control OpenAI. In late 2023, the board suddenly fired Mr. Altman, saying it no longer trusted him to build A.I. for the benefit of humanity — one of the original principles of the nonprofit. But the ouster lasted only five days.
After he returned, Mr. Altman and his colleagues began exploring ways of severing the nonprofit’s control of the company. He also began to stack OpenAI’s board with his allies, offering a bulwark against other efforts to wrest control from him.
OpenAI’s structure is remarkably complex — and Mr. Musk’s bid shows that he understands its weak points. In order to separate from the nonprofit board, Mr. Altman and his colleagues must compensate it: OpenAI might pay the nonprofit a one-time fee, for instance, or give it a minority stake in the company.
While OpenAI has more than 2,000 employees, the nonprofit that controls it has only two employees and $22 million in cash and other assets. The reason Mr. Musk and his investors would pay billions for it is that it has legal control over OpenAI.
But the nonprofit’s assets have not been given a value — and that’s what Mr. Musk is trying to establish with his new bid. His offer could mean that OpenAI’s for-profit arm would have to spend more to gain independence from the nonprofit.
“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI Inc. board of directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” Marc Toberoff, a Los Angeles lawyer who filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on behalf of Mr. Musk last year, said in a statement to The Times.
The board of OpenAI’s nonprofit has a duty to sell its assets at fair market value, said Ellen P. Aprill, a senior scholar studying nonprofit law at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written extensively about OpenAI. Mr. Musk’s offer now appears to set that value very high, she said. If the nonprofit were to accept a lower price from OpenAI’s for-profit arm, it might have to explain to state charity regulators why it turned away a higher bid.
“It’s an enormous complication for the current plan,” she added.
The proposal to shift OpenAI’s assets from the nonprofit to the for-profit is already under scrutiny from state charity regulators in Delaware, where OpenAI is incorporated, and in California, where the company has its headquarters.
Mr. Musk, now one of President Trump’s closest advisers, created his own A.I. company in 2023 to compete head-on with OpenAI. While that company, Xai, has slowly been playing catch-up to an array of A.I. start-ups and tech giants, Mr. Altman has been able to outmaneuver Mr. Musk in Washington.
The day after Mr. Trump was inaugurated, he backed a plan by OpenAI, SoftBank and the software company Oracle to spend $100 billion on new data centers. Mr. Trump described the effort as the “largest A.I. infrastructure project by far in history.”
On Monday, when Mr. Musk’s offer letter was sent, Mr. Altman was at an A.I. conference in Paris attended by other tech and political leaders, including Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Vice President JD Vance.
