OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has responded to the reported $97.4 billion offer from Elon Musk and other investors to take over the nonprofit that has legal control over OpenAI, the Microsoft (MSFT)-backed developer of ChatGPT, saying he is taking ⭕the offer "not particularly" seriously.

Video of Altman taking questions from several reporters in Paris on Tuesday was captured by CNBC.

Asked what he thought the Tesla (TSLA) CEO's endgame was, Altman said "I don't know, I'm cur𓂃ious. I think it's to slow down a competitor and try to catch up with his thing, but I don't really know."

Response Follow༺s Report of $97.4 Billion Takeove🗹r Offer

Musk and a group of investors have reportedly made a $97.4 billion offer to acquire control of OpenAI, the Tesla CEO's lawyer Marc Toberoff told The Wall Street Journal on Monday. The Journal reported that OpenAI could merge with Musk's own artificial intelligence effort, xAI, if the offer were to move forward.

“I think he is probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor,” Altman told Bloomberg in a separate interview Tuesday. “I wish he would just compete by building a better product, but I think there’s been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff, now this.”

Shortly after the offer was reported, Altman responded by rejecting it on social media, and jokingly offering to buy Musk's social media platform X, formerly Twitter, for $9.74 billion, 10% of the reported offer for OpenAI. Altman and a number of other executives from around the AI industry are in France for a summit on AI development.

The Journal and The New York Times each reported that the offer could complicate OpenAI's ongoing funding rounds and its future plans to separate from its nonprofit backing.

Toberoff's law firm and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Tuesday morning.