A team of investors, led by Elon Musk, has submitted a $97.6 billion bid to acquire OpenAI. This development was confirmed by Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

This unsolicited bid marks the latest escalation in Musk’s ongoing feud with OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. The two co-founded OpenAI with several others in 2015. Musk is already involved in a legal dispute with OpenAI, having filed a 2024 injunction to block its effort to transition away from its nonprofit status. The Musk-led team is positioning its bid as an attempt to refocus OpenAI on its original goal of developing open-sourced AI.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk stated through Toberoff. “We will ensure that happens.” Musk’s AI firm, xAI, is involved in the bid, which has led to speculation about the potential merger of the two companies.

Musk specifically highlighted xAI’s Grok model in a related statement provided to TechCrunch. “At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow,” Musk said. “We’ve made Grok open source, and we respect the rights of content creators.” Musk emphasized that OpenAI should return to its original mission of developing open-sourced AI and prioritizing safety. He is confident that xAI will oversee this transition.

In response to Musk’s offer, Altman posted a cheeky message on X, stating, “No thank you, but we’ll buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk and investors had previously acquired Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for further comment.