NEW YORK/PARIS: OpenAI’s board has not yet received a formal bid from an Elon Musk-led consortium, although a lawyer for the billionaire said the offer had been sent to OpenAI’s outside counsel. A day after Musk publicized a bid to offer $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls ChatGPT maker OpenAI, the two sides were still at odds over what exactly happened to the formal bid.
OpenAI’s board of directors has not yet received a formal bid from Musk’s group, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, adding to the confusion over the unsolicited attempt to take control of the world’s most prominent AI company.
Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, told Reuters that he sent the offer by email on Monday to OpenAI’s outside counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The law firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bid — attached to an email — was in the form of a “detailed four-page Letter of Intent” to purchase OpenAI’s assets, signed by Musk and other investors and addressed to the board, Toberoff said.
“Whether Sam Altman chose to provide or withhold this from OpenAI’s other Board members is outside of our control,” he said, referring to OpenAI’s CEO.
The nonprofit that controls OpenAI is not for sale, Altman told Reuters on Tuesday when asked about Musk’s offer to buy it. The offer by the Musk-led consortium came amid the billionaire’s fight to block the artificial intelligence startup from transitioning to a for-profit firm.
“I have nothing to say. I mean, it’s ridiculous,” Altman said on the sidelines of an AI summit in Paris when asked about the offer.
“The company is not for sale. It’s another one of his tactics to try to mess with us,” Altman said, referring to Musk.
In an internal message to OpenAI employees on Monday, Altman said the board, though it had not officially reviewed the offer, planned to reject it based on the interest of OpenAI’s mission.
Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit, but left before the company took off due to a disagreement over the company’s direction and funding sources with Altman and other co-founders. In 2023, he launched the competing AI startup, xAI. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of technology company X, is a close ally of US President Donald Trump. He leads the Department of Government Efficiency, a new arm of the White House tasked with radically shrinking the federal bureaucracy.
OpenAI, in the process of raising $40 billion, is also seeking to transition into a for-profit from a nonprofit entity, which it says is required to secure the capital needed for developing the best AI models. The complicated transition involves putting a price tag on OpenAI’s nonprofit control of the for-profit arm.
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings has said she is reviewing OpenAI’s proposed changes to ensure the company is “adhering to its specific charitable purposes for the benefit of the public beneficiaries, as opposed to the commercial or private interests of OpenAI’s directors or partners.”
Legal experts said Musk’s bid complicates the fair value held by OpenAI, particularly regarding charitable assets in its complicated corporate conversion, meaning the price it needs to pay in exchange for the nonprofit to give up control.
“It does help set a price point for the thinking about the valuation of the nonprofit assets,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, the consumer rights watchdog, told Reuters. “If it were to occur as proposed, the regulators have a duty to ensure that if there’s a selloff of assets to a for-profit entity, that fair market value is obtained.”
OpenAI’s board has not received Musk’s takeover bid, source says
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OpenAI’s board has not received Musk’s takeover bid, source says
- OpenAI’s board of directors has not yet received a formal bid from Musk’s group, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday
US hotels seek World Cup boost after tourism dip under Trump
- At the US hotels that Meade Atkeson manages, a drop in tourism weighs heavily on business — but hoteliers like him hope that World Cup enthusiasm will soon eclipse wariness over President
WASHINGTON: At the US hotels that Meade Atkeson manages, a drop in tourism weighs heavily on business — but hoteliers like him hope that World Cup enthusiasm will soon eclipse wariness over President Donald Trump’s policies.
The US hospitality sector has been reeling from a tourism slump in the world’s biggest economy, which became the only major destination to see a drop in foreign visitors last year.
“Just financially, it’s difficult when international travel is down,” Atkeson told AFP, noting that such visitors tend to stay longer and spend more.
Foreign travelers account for nearly a quarter of business at the three hotels under Sonesta group that he manages — two in Washington and a third in Miami Beach.
Yet, in the first eleven months of 2025, US official data showed that inbound travel dropped by 5.4 percent.
Canadians were noticeably absent, with travel plunging by 21.7 percent from 2024, translating to about four million fewer people. The decline was nearly seven percent for French visitors.
Industry professionals see this as a consequence of Trump’s policies, even if they may not openly say so.
Visitors have chafed at the Republican president’s sweeping tariffs on foreign goods, broadsides against other countries, tightening immigration rules and portrayal of certain Democrat-led cities as ridden with crime.
Canadians “were asked to be the 51st state, right?” Atkeson said.
“If you talk to Canadians, many of them have chosen not to travel out of conscience” or on principle, he added.
Brazilian tourists meanwhile “can go anywhere they want,” he said. “And so they may have gone to Europe, they may have gone to the islands.”
‘Fear’
Thousands of kilometers away, the major resort city of Las Vegas in Nevada — boasting 150,000 hotel rooms — has also had a bad year.
Elsa Rodan, a chambermaid at the Bellagio resort and casino, says her establishment is “blessed” compared with others.
But even so, it has had to lower prices to attract guests, added Rodan, a representative of the Unite Here union who spoke at a Washington press conference.
Unite Here President Gwen Mills urges for a renewed effort to lobby the Trump administration over policies and rhetoric that she believes are jeopardizing the sector employing more than two million people.
According to her, hoteliers are not pushing the government enough.
Employers express “fear, the fear of picking your head up,” she said.
Hopefully ‘better’
Fewer visitors and overnight stays, alongside a drop in revenue, have triggered a $6.7 billion shortfall for Nevada hotels in 2025, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA).
But the organization hopes that 2026 will be a turning point — it is counting on the World Cup, from June 11 to July 19, to attract visitors.
Eleven US cities will be hosting matches.
“It’s being equated to having nearly 80 Super Bowls in just over a month,” AHLA spokesman Ralph Posner told AFP.
“The economic lift won’t be limited to host cities,” he added. “Destinations across the country are hoping to benefit as international visitors extend their trips and travel between markets.”
Las Vegas, for example, hopes to draw fans who might stop there before or after a game in Los Angeles or Kansas City.
Organizers say that besides the seven million spectators in stadiums, the World Cup is set to attract 20-30 million tourists.
The whole event, they believe, can generate $30 billion for the US economy.
“I hope that things will look better,” Atkeson said.
His Miami hotel is under renovations and cannot host much World Cup-related activity.
But his Washington establishments are highlighting their proximity to Philadelphia, where several matches will be held.
Another complication is war in the Middle East following US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which could snarl travel.
“It’s a little too soon to tell how we’re going to do with that, but we’ll see,” he said.
