SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- In a recent court filing, lawyers for Elon Musk said Musk will withdraw his 97.4 billion U.S. dollars bid for OpenAI's nonprofit if its board of directors preserves the charity's mission and stop the company's conversion to a for-profit.
"Should ... the charity's assets proceed to sale, a Musk-led consortium has submitted a serious offer ... that would go to the charity in furtherance of its mission," the filing wrote, adding that if OpenAI's board "is prepared to preserve the charity's mission and stipulate to take the for sale sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid."
The filing, submitted Wednesday to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims that Musk's offer is "serious" and that the nonprofit "must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets."
A team of investors led by Musk submitted a 97.4 billion U.S. dollars bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Sam Altman and others but left the company in 2018. The Musk-led team is positioning the move as an effort to refocus OpenAI on open-sourced artificial intelligence (AI).
In a statement, Andy Nussbaum, the counsel representing OpenAI's board, said Musk's bid "doesn't set a value" for OpenAI and OpenAI is "not for sale."
In a filing on Wednesday, attorneys for OpenAI called Musk's move "an improper bid to undermine a competitor."
