Even the richest person in the world needs a bit of help from his friends when trying to pull off one of the largest hostile takeovers in history.
In assembling his unsolicited US$97.4 billion bid for OpenAI, Elon Musk has turned to some of his biggest supporters for financial backing, including entertainment mogul Ari Emanuel and Tesla Inc. and SpaceX backer Ron Baron.
Notably absent are other billionaires who previously supported Musk in his acquisition of Twitter, now X, such as Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, who kicked in $1 billion for that deal.
Ellison appeared earlier this month alongside OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman at the White House to announce project Stargate — a joint venture between Oracle, SoftBank Group Corp. and OpenAI.
How Elon Musk’s US$97.4 billion bid complicates matters for OpenAI
Musk and Altman — who together co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 — have been locked in a long-standing feud over the company’s direction. In making his long-shot bid, Musk said in a statement he hopes to return OpenAI to being “the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”
Altman, who is pushing to restructure the company into a for-profit business, has rejected Musk’s offer, calling it a tactic to “slow us down.”
Musk’s bid is being backed by his own AI startup xAI, which could merge with OpenAI following a deal.
Musk, with a net worth of $378.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has never shied away from tangling his personal and business relationships.
Here are the large investors who’ve pledged to support Musk’s bid:
Baron Capital
Key man: Ron Baron
Musk connection: SpaceX, Tesla
Ron Baron, who started Baron Capital in 1982, began investing in Tesla in 2014, with the stake making up more than 40% of his Baron Partners Fund as of last month. The fund’s second-largest position is SpaceX, which isn’t publicly traded.
Baron interviewed Musk two years ago at his investment conference and often comes to the billionaire’s defense in the media. “Ron Baron is a real mensch. I love him,” Musk posted on X in November.
A spokesperson for Baron declined to comment on the OpenAI bid.
Vy Capital
Key man: Alexander Tamas
Musk connection: Neuralink, Boring Co., X
Vy Capital has become a big backer of Musk’s empire, investing in Neuralink, Boring Co. and X. The Dubai-based investment firm put more than $700 million into the X deal, making it the third-largest backer behind Ellison and Sequoia Capital. Alexander Tamas, a German national, worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. before starting Vy Capital in 2013.
The firm keeps a low profile, but the metadata behind its sparse website claims it has more than $8 billion in assets under management and “a focus on concentrated investments in category-defining technology companies with the potential to meaningfully impact humanity.”
Valor Equity Partners
Key man: Antonio Gracias
Musk connection: Tesla, X, Boring Co., SpaceX
A Tesla board member from 2007 to 2021, Antonio Gracias is a long-time Musk friend and was gifted the second Roadster sports car that Tesla built. Gracias founded Chicago-based Valor Equity Partners in 1995 and has invested in Musk’s ventures and those of his friends.
In addition to SpaceX, Tesla, Boring Co., SolarCity and Neuralink, Valor Equity has backed Palantir Technologies Inc. co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s wealth-management company Addepar and former Tesla chief technology officer JB Straubel’s Redwood Materials.
Atreides Management
Key man: Gavin Baker
Musk connection: Tesla, xAI, SpaceX
Gavin Baker started Boston-based Atreides Management in 2019 after 18 years at Fidelity Investments, where he supported Musk in the Tesla-SolarCity deal. He’s continued to back Musk through Atreides, including Tesla and SpaceX, which was the largest position in his venture portfolio as of 2022. Baker recently publicly endorsed Tesla’s relocation to Texas as well as Musk’s moon-shot pay package.
Atreides invests in Musk’s companies because “I regard Mr. Musk as an exceptional founder who has repeatedly created significant value in different industries,” Baker said on X. In January, Baker along with Gracias both filed sworn declarations to support Musk in his case against OpenAI.
8VC
Key man: Joe Lonsdale
Musk connection: Boring Co., America PAC
Austin-based investor Joe Lonsdale is a Musk supporter both politically and in business. In the 2024 presidential election, Lonsdale donated $1 million to Musk’s America PAC through his company Lonsdale Enterprises.
His venture firm 8VC has backed Musk projects such as tunneling startup Boring Co., participating in its Series C round alongside fellow bid backers Vy Capital and Valor Equity Partners.
Emanuel Capital Management
Key man: Ari Emanuel
Musk connection: X, Endeavor
Musk and Emanuel are long-time friends — even vacationing together in Greece — whose business interests have also crossed. Musk was on the board of Emanuel’s holding company, Endeavor Group, for a year before stepping down in June 2022. Later that year, Emanuel inserted himself into the Twitter takeover proceedings and made a small investment in X.
The Hollywood super agent even volunteered to become X’s CEO, but Musk turned him down, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the tech billionaire. Emanuel is joining the OpenAI takeover bid through his personal investment firm Emanuel Capital Management.
Emanuel declined to comment on the OpenAI bid through a spokesperson.
Biz Carson, Bloomberg News
