Elon Musk asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to join xAI bid to buy OpenAI

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI in early 2025, court filings on Thursday revealed.

The filing is part of a legal case between Musk and OpenAI that was initiated last year. The case is proceeding in a federal court in Northern California, and a judge recently said OpenAI can move ahead with counter claims against Musk, who co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit with Sam Altman and others in 2015.

When Musk floated his proposal to buy OpenAI in February, he was incensed that the company and Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, were pushing to transform the business into a for-profit entity. Altman and Musk, who were longtime friends, have become bitter adversaries since OpenAI’s emergence as a leader in generative AI with billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft.

Musk started xAI in 2023 and was pushing for it to be a direct competitor to OpenAI. Musk later sued OpenAI, alleging a breach of contract, and tried to stop OpenAI from converting to a for-profit company.

In its counter claims, OpenAI has alleged that Musk and xAI’s “sham bid” harmed its business and that Musk has engaged in “harassment” through litigation and attacks on social media and in the press.

As part of its complaint, OpenAI has filed to subpoena Meta for communications between the company, its CEO and Musk about the bid.

In a statement to the court published Thursday, OpenAI said that when Musk and xAI were trying to form a consortium of investors to finance a takeover, they approached Zuckerberg with a letter of intent and asked “about potential financing arrangements or investments.”

Neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed the LOI, the filing said.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. Marc Toberoff, Musk’s attorney in the case, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The statement in the filing said that Meta has been “spending heavily to develop its own Al capabilities” and has been “offering pay packages of $100 million or more to leading Al researchers and attempting to poach OpenAI employees.” 

Meta has argued that OpenAI’s requests for documents are overly burdensome, and that OpenAI should obtain relevant communications from Musk and xAI, instead.

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