Following his acquisition of Twitter and a significant role within the Trump administration, Elon Musk, the wealthiest individual worldwide, has turned his attention to yet another ambitious venture: the renowned technology company OpenAI. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Musk has allegedly proposed a staggering $97.4 billion offer to purchase the nonprofit organization overseeing OpenAI during a board meeting on Monday.

According to insiders who shared details with Wired, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has noted that Musk’s bid hasn’t yet been formally submitted to his team. Nonetheless, Musk’s ambitions have been verified by CNBC.

Musk’s proposal is expected to receive support from notable venture capitalists, such as media executive Ari Emanuel and Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir, ensuring that he has backing for this significant move. Despite previous tensions between Musk and OpenAI—with Musk voicing strong criticisms and working on his own alternative, X’s Grok—this initiative marks a critical turn for him.

This offer emerges in light of OpenAI’s recent collaboration with President Trump to announce Project Stargate, a significant initiative aimed at investing $500 billion to enhance the domestic AI infrastructure in the United States. OpenAI’s efforts in this endeavor have been supported by major financial players such as SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX, along with technological assistance from Nvidia, Arm, and Microsoft.

In the event that Musk’s acquisition were to succeed, it would introduce an array of new entities into OpenAI’s existing partnerships, presenting unexpected developments.

This bid coincides with CEO Altman’s pursuit to transition the nonprofit into a for-profit entity and to secure $40 billion in funding, which could elevate the startup’s valuation to over $340 billion. Altman has already made a brief post on X communicating his rejection of Musk’s offer, adding humorously that OpenAI might have interest in acquiring the former Twitter for $9.74 billion.

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While the exchange has been characterized by sharp remarks, sources from Wired indicated that OpenAI’s board, potentially able to override Altman’s position, plans to dismiss Musk’s formal offer once presented. Both Wired and The Information reported that Altman seemed to reinforce this decision in a memo to employees, expressing that the board is not interested in the proposition.

“Our structure is intentionally designed to prevent any single individual from seizing control of OpenAI,” Altman reportedly conveyed. “Elon operates a competitive AI firm, and his actions do not align with the mission or values of OpenAI.”

This isn’t Musk’s first experience with OpenAI; he was one of its co-founders alongside Altman back in 2015, only to depart in 2019. At that time, Musk claimed that the organization’s “likelihood of success was zero.”

Today, his perspective appears to have shifted. In a declaration made through his attorney to The Wall Street Journal, Musk expressed, “It’s time for OpenAI to revert to being the open-source, safety-oriented entity for good that it once was.”

Update 2/12: Information has been updated to reflect insights from Wired and The Information regarding Musk’s offer status and the OpenAI board’s stance.