{"id":5477,"date":"2025-08-22T11:59:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T11:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/openai-lawyers-question-metas-role-in-elon-musks-97b-takeover-bid\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T11:59:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T11:59:30","slug":"openai-lawyers-question-metas-role-in-elon-musks-97b-takeover-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/openai-lawyers-question-metas-role-in-elon-musks-97b-takeover-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI lawyers question Meta\u2019s role in Elon Musk\u2019s $97B takeover bid\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OpenAI is asking Meta to produce evidence related to any coordinated plans with Elon Musk and xAI to acquire or invest in the ChatGPT-maker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The request was made public in a brief filed Thursday in Elon Musk&rsquo;s ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI. Lawyers representing OpenAI said they subpoenaed Meta in June for documents related to its potential involvement in Musk&rsquo;s unsolicited, $97 billion bid to take over the startup in February. It&rsquo;s unclear from the filing whether such documents exist. OpenAI ultimately rejected Musk&rsquo;s bid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OpenAI&rsquo;s lawyers said they discovered that Musk communicated with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg concerning xAI&rsquo;s bid to purchase the ChatGPT-maker, including &ldquo;about potential financing arrangements or investments.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta objected to OpenAI&rsquo;s initial subpoena in July; the ChatGPT-maker&rsquo;s lawyers are now seeking a court order to obtain such evidence. OpenAI is also asking the court for any of Meta&rsquo;s documents and communications related to &ldquo;any actual or potential restructuring or recapitalization of OpenAI&rdquo; &mdash; the core issue in Musk&rsquo;s lawsuit against OpenAI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta spokesperson Andy Stone directed TechCrunch to a section of OpenAI&rsquo;s filing which states that neither Meta nor Zuckerberg signed Musk&rsquo;s letter of intent to acquire the ChatGPT-maker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meta declined to comment further. OpenAI and legal counsel for Musk did not immediately respond to TechCrunch&rsquo;s request for comment.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the background of OpenAI&rsquo;s fight with Musk, Meta has significantly invested in its own efforts to develop frontier AI models. In 2023, Meta executives obsessed over developing an AI model that could beat OpenAI&rsquo;s GPT-4, court filings in another case revealed. By early 2025, Meta&rsquo;s AI models had fallen behind the industry standard, reportedly infuriating Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\" readability=\"5.3\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\" readability=\"24.75\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco<\/span><br>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zuckerberg has upped the pressure in recent months, poaching several of OpenAI&rsquo;s leading AI researchers, including Shengjia Zhao, a co-creator of ChatGPT who now leads research efforts at the company&rsquo;s newest AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta also invested $14 billion in Scale AI and reportedly approached several other AI labs about acquisition deals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While it&rsquo;s unclear how far talks progressed between Musk and Zuckerberg, the mere idea of a partnership between the two billionaires represents just how much of a threat OpenAI poses. Two years ago, Musk said he would physically fight Zuckerberg in a cage match (though it never happened).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The rise of AI may have prompted Musk and Zuckerberg to set aside their differences.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The filing disclosed Thursday is part of a larger lawsuit filed by Musk against OpenAI that takes issue with OpenAI&rsquo;s conversion of its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation. Such a conversion is necessary for OpenAI to obtain funding from investors, and eventually go public. However, Musk &mdash; a cofounder and early investor in OpenAI &mdash; has attempted to throw a wrench in the endeavor, claiming that the restructuring goes against the startup&rsquo;s founding mission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lawyers representing Meta asked the court to reject OpenAI&rsquo;s request for evidence, arguing that Musk and xAI can provide any relevant information. Meta also argues that its internal discussions of OpenAI&rsquo;s restructuring and recapitalization are not relevant to the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This story has been updated to add more information about the case, as well as the history of Musk and Zuckerberg&rsquo;s relationship.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>OpenAI lawyers question Meta&rsquo;s role in Elon Musk&rsquo;s $97B takeover bid&nbsp;<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OpenAI is asking Meta to produce evidence related to any coordinated plans with Elon Musk and xAI to acquire or invest in the ChatGPT-maker. The request was made public in a brief filed Thursday in Elon Musk&rsquo;s ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI. Lawyers representing OpenAI said they subpoenaed Meta in June for documents related to its&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/openai-lawyers-question-metas-role-in-elon-musks-97b-takeover-bid\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;OpenAI lawyers question Meta\u2019s role in Elon Musk\u2019s $97B takeover bid\u00a0&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}