Musk's bid to buy OpenAI is rebuffed



Jackie: It's the latest twist in a long-standing battle between Elon Musk, the world's richest man and confidant of Donald Trump, and the chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman.



A consortium of investors led by Mr. Musk has offered nearly $100 billion to buy OpenAI, which developed the popular AI tool, ChatGPT. But that bid has been met with a no-thank-you. Instead, Mr. Altman offered to buy X for a tenth of the price. Janat Jalil heard more from our technology correspondent, Lily Jamali.



Lily: The backstory here is that Elon Musk helped co-found OpenAI way back in 2015 and then left three years later. He says it was because OpenAI strayed from its mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity is the phrase that he and his lawyers use. His critics say he was just upset because he wanted control of the company, didn't get it. And that's why he left.



And so Elon Musk and Sam Altman are now embroiled in a legal fight. Musk is trying to stop OpenAI from transitioning from a nonprofit the way it was founded to a for-profit corporation, which is the direction that Sam Altman wants to take the company.



Jackie: And despite the huge amount of money he's offering, he's getting short shrift from Mr. Altman.



Lily: That's right. Yes, they had a little bit of a spat on what was once Twitter and is now Elon Musk owned X. So Sam Altman pretty much immediately responded. And as you, as you said, you know, no, thank you. But he offered to buy Twitter for almost $10 billion, which is really throwing shade at Elon Musk, who bought the platform for quite a bit more than that for $44 billion.



So I think that that's, you know, very, very much part of the course in their relationship. And Elon Musk responded to that tweet by calling Altman a swindler. So I don't think the temperature is going to be cooling off anytime soon.



Jackie: Absolutely not, because you've got Donald Trump also announcing $500 billion of investment in AI tech. So there really is huge competition now to win this race for artificial intelligence dominance.



Lily: That's right. And that was a really remarkable moment when you saw Sam Altman on stage or really at a press conference at the White House standing next to Donald Trump, the first week that Donald Trump took office. I mean, the reason that was so remarkable is because of Altman's relationship with Musk and the fact that Donald Trump invited Altman into the inner sanctum, really, despite what Musk had done to help get Trump elected.



And so that project that you're referring to is a massive investment in the infrastructure that will help power OpenAI, build a bunch of data centers starting in Texas. The promise was 100,000 jobs.  We'll see if anything near that actually materializes.



But, you know, that's all going to be private money. There's no US Taxpayer money that is slated for that. But at least, you know, in Trump's view, he got to be a part of the reveal there and get a little bit of the PR halo, if you will.



词汇表

bid [bɪd] 出价，投标

rebuff [rɪ'bʌf] 断然拒绝，回绝

twist [twɪst] 转折，变化

long-standing 长期存在的，由来已久的

confidant [ˈkɒnfɪdænt] 密友，心腹，知己

chief executive [ɪɡˈzekjʊtɪv] 首席执行官，总裁

consortium [kənˈsɔː(r)tiəm] 联盟，财团，企业集团

co-found [ˌkəʊˈfaʊnd] 共同创立，联合创建

stray from its mission [streɪ] 偏离其使命

critic ['krɪtɪk] 反对者，批评者

be embroiled in [ɪm'brɔɪld] 卷入，陷入

nonprofit [nɒnˈprɒfɪt] 非营利组织；非营利的

for-profit 营利性的

short shrift [ʃrɪft] 不理会，忽视，怠慢

throw shade [ʃeɪd] 暗讽，含沙射影，公开蔑视或贬低

swindler ['swɪndlə(r)] 骗子，骗取钱财的人

cool off 冷却，平静下来

dominance [ˈdɒmɪnəns] 优势，主导地位，支配地位

take office 就职，上任

inner sanctum ['sæŋktəm] 核心圈（某个组织或团体中最有权力、最核心的成员群体）

infrastructure [ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌktʃə(r)] 基础设施

materialize [məˈtɪəriəlaɪz] 实现，成为现实

taxpayer  [ˈtæksˌpeɪə(r)] 纳税人

slate [sleɪt] 安排，预定

PR 公关，公共关系 (public relations)

halo [ˈheɪləʊ] 光环，荣光



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