The enemy of my enemy: When Elon Musk asked one of his biggest rival to help buy OpenAI

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg don't have the friendliest of history, but you must have heard the saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that stands true here. Court filings revealed that Musk approached

Meta CEO

Zuckerberg to help finance his $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI in February, despite their public feuds and Meta's direct competition with OpenAI.The Tesla billionaire identified Zuckerberg as one of the people he had communicated with about potentially financing the

ChatGPT

maker purchase, according to OpenAI's court filing. However, neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed the letter of intent or participated in the massive takeover attempt, which OpenAI's board formally rejected.

Elon Musk wants OpenAI back

Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 before leaving the company's board in 2018 and launching rival

xAI

in 2023. He has since sued OpenAI twice for allegedly breaching its founding principles by prioritizing commercial interests over public good, and has sought to block the company's restructuring efforts.

The $97.4 billion takeover attempt represents Musk's boldest move yet to regain control of the AI company he helped create. His willingness to approach even longtime rival Zuckerberg—whom he once challenged to a literal cage fight—shows the extraordinary lengths he'll go to wrestle OpenAI away from Sam Altman and Microsoft's influence. The bid reportedly had backing from Musk's usual investors including Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, and media executive Ari Emanuel, suggesting serious financial firepower behind the effort.The failed bid also reveals how Musk's public criticism of OpenAI's for-profit pivot may have been strategic positioning for an eventual acquisition attempt. His relentless legal challenges, viewed through this lens, appear less about upholding founding principles and more about creating financial and reputational pressure to force OpenAI into a vulnerable position where a hostile takeover might succeed.

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg is fighting for the AI Supremacy

Zuckerberg’s main concern doesn’t seem to be OpenAI, but taking the lead in the AI wars, which has created a spur between the CEO of two companies. Altman, who was once praising Zuckerberg's hiring practices, has lashed out at him for trying to create an AI talent exodus from OpenAI. Meta's aggressive $100 million pay packages have successfully poached several key OpenAI researchers, including Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bi, Jiahui Yu, and Hongyu Ren.The social media giant's hiring spree extends beyond OpenAI, netting major industry figures like former GitHub chief Nat Friedman and Scale AI's former CEO Alexandr Wang for its superintelligence division. OpenAI has requested that the judge compel Meta to turn over documentation related to any communications with Musk about the failed bid, though Meta argues it holds no evidence of coordination since it never participated in the acquisition attempt.