Musk vs Altman: conflict secured

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,…