OpenAI was valued at $157 billion in its last funding round, cementing its status as one of the most valuable private companies in the world. SoftBank Group is in talks to lead a funding round of up to $40 billion in OpenAI at a valuation of $300 billion, including the new funds, Reuters reported in January.

OpenAI boss Sam Altman has reiterated the AI giant is “not for sale” after an Elon Musk-led group of investors offered more than 97 billion dollars (£78.4bn) for the firm. After news of the 97.4bn dollar offer for OpenAI broke on Monday night, Mr Altman said on X: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for 9.74 billion dollars if you want.”

The group’s $97 billion offer is far lower than the OpenAI’s most recent valuation by investors. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rebuffed the offer in a post on X.

The escalating feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took a dramatic turn on Monday as Altman responded to Musk’s $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI with a counter-offer of his own: a tongue-in-cheek proposal to purchase Twitter, now X, for $9.74 billion.

A group led by Elon Musk on Monday offered to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

An Elon Musk-led bid for OpenAI's nonprofit assets could cause issues for Sam Altman's ambitions to turn the AI lab into a for-profit corporation.

A group of investors led by Elon Musk says it is offering $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit behind OpenAI, escalating a dispute with the artificial intelligence company that Musk helped found

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman rebuffed Elon Musk’s $97.4 billion offer to take control of the artificial-intelligence startup for the second time in less than a day, accusing the world’s richest man of making the bid just to gain a competitive advantage.