‘All the Bond villains rolled into one’: Why Musk's OpenAI power grab matters

Read time: 3 minutes

In brief…

• Elon Musk made a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI, which was rejected by Sam Altman, who countered by suggesting he might buy X for $9.74 billion.
• The bid was motivated by Musk's claim that OpenAI's shift from non-profit to for-profit violates its founding principles. However, The News Agents suggest it's also driven by Musk feeling "left out" of the AI revolution, particularly as Altman gains influence through projects such as Stargate with Trump.
• Control of AI companies such as OpenAI has significant implications for global power and information control - as demonstrated by how Chinese AI model DeepSeek censors certain topics like Tiananmen Square, raising concerns about Musk potentially controlling such influential technology given his track record with X/Twitter.

What’s the story?

Money can't buy you happiness, as the saying goes, but it can buy you pretty much any media platform you fancy.

At least, that's Elon Musk's approach to his finances. Having bought Twitter, and turned it into a place where people such as Kanye West can post all day about how much they love Hitler, he's now trying to buy OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT.

“Elon Musk, not satisfied with already being the world's richest man, not satisfied with basically taking over quite a bit of the American federal government, not satisfied with controlling X, SpaceX and Tesla, wants to get his hands potentially on AI as well,” Lewis Goodall says.

“If it wasn't so serious, there'd be something slightly comic about it,” Jon Sopel adds.

Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman in 2015, but the two parted ways in 2018.

Musk's $97.4 billion (£78.8bn) bid for OpenAI has been rejected by its founder Sam Altman, who has fired back suggesting he might instead buy Twitter for $9.74 billion.

That amount is closer to the $9.4 billion (£7.6bn) Twitter/X was valued at in 2024, a fraction of the $44 billion (£35.6bn) Musk paid for it in 2022.

Musk's bid for OpenAI was backed by key players in the tech industry. A legal challenge from Musk alongside the bid claims that Altman's move to change the company from a non-profit organisation to a for-profit outfit means it will no longer develop AI for the good of humanity, which was the pair’s original ambition for the company.

Altman and OpenAI say the change is to ensure it can develop the best possible AI systems.

The attempted buyout of OpenAI is Musk's second attempt to return the company to its original premise, having launched legal action against the company in 2024, accusing it of breaching its founding principles, and operating a monopoly.

Musk owns his own AI company, xAI, and X offers users an AI tool named Grok.

What's The News Agents' take?

“This is a clash between these two titans of this industry,” Lewis says.

But, the central question is why does it matter who owns AI? The answer comes down to power, control and influence.

“If even a tenth of what is being reported about the way AI is going to shape our lives, our destiny, the way we work, the way we interact with the world are correct, then this is the most powerful technology since the internet,” Jon explains.

Who controls it then, matters a great deal. To understand why, take a look at DeepSeek, the Chinese AI model that was built at a fraction of the cost of its American counterpart.

DeepSeek works almost identically to Chat GPT – but ask it what happened in Tiananmen Square, and it won’t give you an answer.

“That's why it's wild,” Jon says.

“Do we want Elon Musk – given what he has done to X, in terms of the algorithm and the toxicity and the misinformation – to be in charge of the tool which is going to tell us what is happening in the world right now?” Lewis explains.

Jon describes Musk as “like all the baddies from Bond films rolled into one,” with an “insatiable appetite for ever more power.”

Is his thirst for dominance over the AI space because he doesn’t like the direction Altman is taking OpenAI in, his desire for power, or something else?

It’s partly, Emily believes, because Musk is feeling “left out” of the AI revolution, which Sam Altman is synonymous with.

“Altman is, frankly, at the very center of all these discussions about the future of AI,” she explains.

Donald Trump invited Altman to work on Stargate, a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.

“Elon Musk is Trump's bro. Elon Musk is the one at Trump's side,” Emily explains.

“Musk doesn't like the idea that Sam Altman might be getting some of the limelight, some of the love, from Trump.”

Jon agrees; “Musk has had his nose put out of joint, and Musk does not like to have his nose put out of joint”.

But, if Musk did manage to take control of OpenAI, Lewis says he might be not only the most powerful person in the world, but he could become “the most powerful person to have ever lived”.

Between X, Space X, Tesla, Dodge and all of his other commitments, Jon wants to know; “who polices the conflict of interests?”

But he answers his own question.

“Elon Musk does. It's up to Elon Musk to decide whether he's got a conflict of interest.

“Nice work. If you can get it.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents