Musk vs Altman: battle secured | USAEMALL.com

One thing to start: BP could be forced to change its management, list in the US or even break up after the activist hedge fund Elliott Management built a stake in the UK oil major, leading investors have warned. All eyes will be on BP’s quarterly results today.

In today’s newsletter:

• Musk makes a bid for OpenAI

• New hierarchy on Wall Street

• Palantir’s bet on the US government

Let the OpenAI takeover games begin

Elon Musk, weeks into launching what the FT has dubbed a “hostile takeover” of the US government, has set his eyes on another target: OpenAI, the artificial intelligence start-up that has spurred billions in investment and calls for a new technological age.

Musk, the richest person in the world, and a group of co-investors submitted a near-$100bn bid for the non-profit that controls OpenAI on Monday, throwing a wrench in Sam Altman’s plan to convert the start-up into a for-profit entity.

This isn’t Musk’s first foray with the ChatGPT maker, and in fact, it’s just the latest salvo in a lengthy, bitter rivalry between the Tesla boss and Altman.

Their history goes back to when Musk co-founded OpenAI and invested tens of millions of dollars into the fledgling company before leaving its board in 2018.

Since then, he’s been a vocal critic of Altman’s attempt to convert it into a for-profit business, with Musk saying the plan betrays the company’s founding mission.

On top of all that, the former collaborators are competing to dominate AI — with Musk running his own company xAI — as they each race to raise tens of billions of dollars and build vast data centres.

Shortly after the news broke on Monday, the feud between Musk and Altman spilled further into the open. Or rather, the sparring of words made its way to where so many things are duked out nowadays: social media platform X, formerly called Twitter.

Altman soon posted on the site: “no thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

There are a few big caveats here. “OpenAI doesn’t have to sell,” said Ann Lipton, a law professor at Tulane University. “The non-profit controls [OpenAI], and until that structure changes, it has obligations as a non-profit to pursue its mission.”

There was “nothing Musk can do but use soft persuasive power”, she added.

But with Musk’s plum post at the centre of Donald Trump’s White House — as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency — that soft power could be significant.

Call Jamie Dimon ‘the closer’

JPMorgan Chase for decades has been the banker to the biggest companies in the world, though often it was for a dull line of credit or treasury relationship.

But today it is deep in the boardroom and C-suite, working on the big, high-wire M&A deals that define industries. It helps that JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon is known for calling coveted clients personally to make the bank’s case.

As the FT’s Josh Franklin and DD’s Sujeet Indap chronicled over the weekend, there’s a new hierarchy emerging on Wall Street.

Goldman Sachs is still king. But its longtime rivalry with Morgan Stanley is being upended. The fast-growing specialist, Evercore, last year generated $2.45bn in deal fees, third overall in the rankings.

And rather than Morgan Stanley landing in its traditional second slot to Goldman, JPMorgan was the silver medallist ($3.29bn), shunting Morgan Stanley off of the podium ($2.38bn).

JPMorgan has invested heavily in building out its M&A team and trying to prove that it belongs in sensitive corporate matters. Evercore, as the FT reported last year, has been an expert at picking up highly productive bankers from across Wall Street and turning them loose.

As for Morgan Stanley, its stock price performance and valuation have been enviable (its market cap now exceeds $200bn). But that has largely been driven by its wealth management business, which generates hefty fees.

Morgan Stanley, for its part, remains an A-list Wall Street player, especially as it targets a business that investors hold in high regard (far more than traditional investment banking): asset management.

Morgan Stanley has bet heavily on the business, with former chief executive James Gorman buying both E*Trade and Eaton Vance. It’s an area Goldman is itself trying to beef up in, given those dependable and easily forecastable revenues.

But the fact that Morgan Stanley — whose alumni include the likes of Bob Greenhill, Joe Perella, Frank Quattrone and Paul Taubman — is now trying to fend off JPMorgan and Evercore is a sharp departure from the days when it duelled with Goldman Sachs.

It may be that Morgan Stanley just needs Dimon to retire one of these days and stop with his flattering pitch calls.

The revolving door at Palantir

Palantir has assembled an arsenal of former government officials that have helped it infiltrate the US defence industry over the past two decades, according to an investigation by the FT and the Tech Transparency Project.

The data intelligence group, which is overseen by billionaire chair Peter Thiel, was founded after the September 11 terrorist attacks to help the US government and intelligence agencies analyse complex data sets. The aim was to improve national security.

Almost 25 years later, it has successfully created a sprawling influence network that runs through the US government and corporate America.

It has deepened ties with its largest client, the Department of Defense, hired extensively from government agencies, increased its lobbying spending in the US over the past decade by six-fold, and created a non-profit foundation to fund academic research and shape policy discussions.

That has led to an astonishing growth in its sales from government contracts and deals with the world’s largest corporations. Now, investors are betting Palantir will be among the biggest winners of a pledge by Donald Trump to improve efficiency of costs around defence spending.

Palantir’s stock has soared almost 600 per cent since the start of last year to more than $116 per share, giving the data intelligence group a record market capitalisation of $265bn.

Its influence in DC is vast and stretches all the way to the White House — helped by a revolving door of recruitment as well as the impressive network of Thiel, who is the godfather of the recent Silicon Valley swing to supporting Trump.

The company’s executives “have their fingerprints all over the Trump transition and administration”, said Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

“Silicon Valley used to say ‘we don’t have to lobby because we have a superior product’, but now it is all in on politics.”

Job moves 

• Evercore has hired David Kamo as a senior managing director for the bank’s financial sponsor M&A advisory business in New York. He most recently worked for Goldman Sachs.

• Nokia has appointed top Intel manager Justin Hotard to replace Pekka Lundmark as its chief executive as the Finnish telecoms equipment maker struggles to come out of a decade of stagnating share price and revenue.

• Simpson Thacher has hired Evan Hudson as a partner in the group’s registered funds practice. He joins from Alston & Bird.

• Trump has appointed Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany during the president’s first term in the White House, as the interim executive director of the Kennedy Center, the performing arts organisation in Washington. The president also removed David Rubenstein as chair. 

Smart reads

The Monday interview The chief executive of chip designer Arm, Rene Haas, sat down with the FT to talk about the future of artificial intelligence — and why he isn’t afraid of DeepSeek disrupting the industry.

Nuclear reactors The notoriously expensive nuclear energy sector is desperate to find new ways to keep costs in check, the FT reports. Can it find a better way to build out?

Pass-through fees Hedge funds are pocketing much of their investors’ gains with fees that have no real limit, Bloomberg reports. One investor said: “You are paying for everything including the copier paper.”

News round-up

Donald Trump to hit US steel and aluminium imports with 25% tariffs (FT)

Failed fintech Stenn took millions from Serbian groups aping blue-chips (FT)

Christie’s plan for AI art auction sparks backlash from artists (FT)

Fox in deal to buy podcast producer Red Seat (FT)

Chinese EV leader BYD to offer ‘God’s Eye’ self-driving system on all models (FT)

Deutsche Bank fined €10mn by Spanish regulator over forex mis-selling (FT)

Marsalek confidant describes friendship with ‘socially awkward’ Wirecard executive (FT)

Billionaire’s daughter can hand back £33mn moth-infested mansion, High Court rules (FT)