Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Sure Elon Musk Might Buy OpenAI

OpenAI hostile takeover

In the spring of 2022, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter Inc. for about $44 billion. Twitter’s board of directors met with its investment bankers to discuss exactly one question: Was Musk’s offer more than Twitter was worth otherwise (on its own or in a competing deal)? The bankers and board concluded that Twitter was not going to do better for its shareholders than Musk was offering, so they took Musk’s deal.

A lot of Twitter employees and users were sad about this. Musk’s takeover was, let’s say, a mixed bag for Twitter’s employees and users and advertisers, ...