The AI industry's most explosive secret just surfaced in court documents: Elon Musk approached Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in early 2025 to help finance a staggering $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI. The revelation, buried in legal filings from Musk's ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI, exposes the billionaire's desperate attempt to reassemble the AI company he co-founded before it completes its transformation into a for-profit juggernaut.
The tech world's most unlikely alliance almost happened. Elon Musk, through his xAI venture, reached out to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in February 2025 with a letter of intent to help finance what would have been the largest AI acquisition in history. The $97.4 billion bid represented Musk's nuclear option to regain control of the company he co-founded with Sam Altman in 2015.
But Zuckerberg wasn't buying in. According to court documents filed Thursday, neither the Meta CEO nor his company signed the letter of intent. The rejection speaks volumes about the fractured state of AI's power players—even facing OpenAI's dominance, former rivals couldn't unite.
The filing emerges from Musk's escalating legal war with OpenAI, now proceeding in Northern California federal court. What started as Musk's attempt to block OpenAI's for-profit conversion has morphed into mutual destruction, with OpenAI firing back counterclaims alleging Musk's "sham bid" damaged their business through systematic "harassment."
The timing of Musk's overture reveals his desperation. By February 2025, OpenAI had already secured billions from Microsoft and was steamrolling toward its for-profit transformation. Musk, who launched xAI in 2023 as a direct competitor, watched his former protégé Altman build exactly what he'd envisioned—but without him.
