Musk urged Zuckerberg to purchase OpenAI, as indicated by court documents

In early 2025, tech mogul Elon Musk made a significant move to acquire OpenAI, the company behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, by submitting a $97.6 billion acquisition offer. His bid, led by a group of investors, included an invitation for Mark Zuckerberg and Meta to join the venture. However, the offer was rejected, and neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed on.

Musk's attempt to purchase OpenAI was not without controversy. In February, OpenAI rejected the bid, and the rejection prompted Musk to sue the company for breach of founding agreement, alleging that OpenAI prioritized commercial interests over the greater good and sought to block restructuring efforts.

The legal battle between Musk and OpenAI intensified when Musk threatened to sue Apple last week, alleging that the tech giant favoured ChatGPT in app store rankings.

Meanwhile, Meta has been stepping up its efforts to improve its large language model and chatbot, which competes with ChatGPT. The social media giant launched a talent war in the summer, offering researchers from pioneering labs like OpenAI salary packages of up to $100 million (€86 million) to join its superintelligence department. Notable hires by Meta include Nat Friedman (former CEO of GitHub), Alexandr Wang (former CEO of Scale AI), and several former OpenAI researchers.

In response to Musk's bid, OpenAI has asked the judge to order Meta to produce any communication between the social media company and Musk or his new venture, xAI. Meta declined to comment on the matter, while OpenAI and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The relationship between Musk and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has been strained since Musk founded xAI after leaving OpenAI. Altman co-founded OpenAI with Musk in 2015 but left the board of OpenAI in 2018 due to disagreements over the company's direction, which had shifted to a for-profit structure and sought a partnership with Microsoft. In February, Musk referred to Altman as "Scam Altman" on Twitter.

As the legal battle between Musk and OpenAI continues, it remains to be seen how the tech industry will respond and whether there will be further developments in the relationship between these tech giants.