Elon Musk Tapped Mark Zuckerberg to Join His $97.4B OpenAI Takeover—But Zuckerberg Said No

Elon Musk, the world's richest person, had requested Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97.4 billion OpenAl takeover in early 2025, as revealed in court filings on Thursday

The filing is part of a legal case between Musk and OpenAI that began last year. The case is ongoing in federal court in Northern California, and a judge recently said OpenAI could pursue its counterclaims against Musk. Musk started OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 with Sam Altman and other founders

When Musk proposed to buy OpenAI in February, he was upset that the company and Altman (now OpenAI's CEO) were trying to spin off the business into a for-profit entity. Musk and Altman used to be good friends, but after OpenAI became the leader in generative AI and received billions in funding from Microsoft, their relations soured and they now became big rivals.

Musk launched xAI in 2023 and wanted it to be a direct competitor to OpenAI. Musk later sued OpenAI, claiming they had breached a contract and tried to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company.

OpenAI counterclaimed that the “sham bid” between Musk and xAI was harming their business and that Musk had “harassed” them — whether through litigation, social media, or the press.

As part of its complaint, OpenAI filed a subpoena against Meta to force the disclosure of communications between them, their CEO, and Musk related to the bid. In a statement to the court, OpenAI said that when Musk and xAI were trying to form a consortium of investors to finance the takeover, they sent a letter of intent (LOI) to Zuckerberg and discussed “financing arrangements or investments” with him.

But according to the filing, neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed the LOI. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. Musk’s lawyer Marc Toberoff also did not respond.

The filing also said Meta is “spending heavily to develop its AI capabilities” and “offering pay packages of $100 million+ to attract leading AI researchers, as well as attempting to approach OpenAI employees.”

Meta says OpenAI’s document requests are “very burdensome” and that it should receive these communications from Musk and xAI, not Meta.