Elon Musk tried to recruit Mark Zuckerberg in $97.4B bid to buy OpenAI, court filing reveals

Elon Musk once attempted to recruit Mark Zuckerberg into his high-stakes campaign to acquire OpenAI. According to court filings unsealed this week, Musk reached out to Zuckerberg earlier this year to explore whether the Meta chief would back his consortium’s $97.4 billion offer for the ChatGPT maker. Zuckerberg didn’t join, OpenAI said.

The filings show that Musk disclosed his conversations with Zuckerberg during sworn interrogations tied to OpenAI’s ongoing legal fight with him. Musk, who now runs his own AI startup xAI, could not be reached for comment. xAI didn’t respond to messages sent outside regular business hours.

According to a report from Reuters, OpenAI is pressing a federal judge to compel Meta to hand over documents and communications tied to any talks about a possible bid for the company.

That includes “communications with Musk or other bidders” as well as any internal Meta discussions about restructuring or recapitalizing OpenAI. OpenAI argued these records could reveal the motivations behind Musk’s move and whether competitors like Meta had deeper involvement.

Meta pushed back. In its own filing, the company said OpenAI should direct its requests to Musk and xAI, not Meta. “Meta’s own communications concerning OpenAI’s restructuring or recapitalization (even as narrowed) are not relevant to this action,” the company said, urging the judge to deny the motion.

“Meta, in the same court filing, said OpenAI should seek any relevant documents directly from Musk and his AI startup, and asked the judge to deny OpenAI’s motion,” Reuters reported.

The news comes just a week after Musk threatened legal action against Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT and burying his Grok chatbot in App Store rankings.

The legal drama is the latest twist in a bitter feud. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk must face OpenAI’s claims accusing him of trying to damage the company through “press statements, social media posts, legal claims and a sham bid for OpenAI’s assets.”

Musk had originally sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman last year, claiming the company betrayed its nonprofit roots by shifting to a for-profit model. OpenAI counter-sued in April, accusing Musk of attempting to undermine the startup while building his own rival.

The case is now barreling toward a jury trial scheduled for spring 2026, setting up one of the most closely watched legal showdowns in Silicon Valley.