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Elon Musk Leads $97.4 Billion Bid For OpenAI Control, Sparking Tensions With Sam Altman

by THEFUTURE.TEAM
February 11, 2025

Elon Musk is at the forefront of a $97.4 billion bid to acquire the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, further intensifying his ongoing clash with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The group backing Musk’s bid includes Vy Capital, Xai (Musk’s AI company), Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel, and other investors.

This move represents Musk’s latest attempt to take control of an organization he co-founded nearly a decade ago. However, the bid faces strong resistance, as OpenAI’s board is closely aligned with Altman, who swiftly dismissed Musk’s offer with a pointed remark: “No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk responded with a sharp “Swindler.”

Despite the tense exchange, Musk’s offer complicates OpenAI’s plans to complete a $40 billion fundraising round, which would nearly double the company’s valuation to $300 billion. Led by SoftBank, this deal would position OpenAI among the world’s most valuable private companies, alongside Musk’s SpaceX and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

OpenAI’s board of directors, which remains loyal to Altman, may need to deal with the complex challenge of compensating the nonprofit that controls OpenAI if they move ahead with Musk’s bid. OpenAI, with over 2,000 employees, is structured with a nonprofit board that has legal control despite its limited resources, with only two employees and $22 million in assets.

Musk’s bid could force OpenAI to pay a high price for separating from the nonprofit board, which has led to legal scrutiny. In the eyes of many experts, Musk’s proposal is an effort to set the nonprofit’s assets at a very high value, which would create challenges for OpenAI’s move to full independence. The nonprofit’s board must ensure that the sale of assets is at fair market value, or they could face questions from charity regulators.

Musk’s aggressive approach signals his intent to reshape the AI industry, with his own AI company, Xai, directly competing with OpenAI. At the same time, Altman has garnered significant support in Washington, securing investments and backing from major players like SoftBank and Oracle.

The ongoing battle for control of OpenAI illustrates the high stakes involved in the race for artificial intelligence supremacy, with Musk and Altman at the center of a high-profile tech showdown.

The AI Agent Revolution: Can the Industry Handle the Compute Surge?

by THEFUTURE.TEAM
March 28, 2025

As AI agents evolve from simple chatbots into complex, autonomous assistants, the tech industry faces a new challenge: Is there enough computing power to support them? With AI agents poised to become integral in various industries, computational demands are rising rapidly.

A recent Barclays report forecasts that the AI industry can support between 1.5 billion and 22 billion AI agents, potentially revolutionizing white-collar work. However, the increase in AI’s capabilities comes at a cost. AI agents, unlike chatbots, generate significantly more tokens—up to 25 times more per query—requiring far greater computing power.

Tokens, the fundamental units of generative AI, represent fragmented parts of language to simplify processing. This increase in token generation is linked to reasoning models, like OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s R1, which break tasks into smaller, manageable chunks. As AI agents process more complex tasks, the tokens multiply, driving up the demand for AI chips and computational capacity.

Barclays analysts caution that while the current infrastructure can handle a significant volume of agents, the rise of these “super agents” might outpace available resources, requiring additional chips and servers to meet demand. OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro, for example, generates around 9.4 million tokens annually per subscriber, highlighting just how computationally expensive these reasoning models can be.

In essence, the tech industry is at a critical juncture. While AI agents show immense potential, their expansion could strain the limits of current computing infrastructure. The question is, can the industry keep up with the demand?

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