Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel finally a billionaire, sides with Elon Musk in fight for OpenAI

Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index crowned Emanuel with the elite status last week, with his gain in wealth largely due to his well-performing stake in Endeavor, which was the first Hollywood agency to go public.

Executives at the company claimed they were shortchanged while Emanuel cashed out big on the IPO, The Post previously reported.

He received a roughly $84 million pay package in 2024 from his salary, bonus and stock awards. As of June 2023, he had an approximately 12.3% stake in the company, according to a regulatory filing.

Shares in Endeavor rose more than 45% over the past 12 months, enjoying a boost from UFC and WWE, which Endeavor owns through TKO Holdings.

The stock dipped about 0.9% on Monday, trading at $35.17 a share.

Emanuel’s new billionaire standing comes as he has thrown himself into the battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman as the two wealthy techies fight for control of OpenAI.

Last week, Emanuel was part of a group of investors led by Musk that made a shocking $97.4 billion bid to take over the artificial intelligence firm.

The unsolicited buyout offer was Musk’s latest move in a yearslong legal battle with Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, as he has tried to block OpenAI from switching to a for-profit company.

During an interview with the “Freakonomics Radio Live” show, Emanuel claimed he was siding with Musk over safety concerns plaguing OpenAI.

“There’s been a mass exodus of OpenAI’s top people charged with AI governance because Sam was prioritizing ‘shiny objects’ over safety,” Emanuel told the radio show, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

His involvement could signal a shift in Hollywood toward new AI models.

In December, OpenAI unveiled Sora, its AI-powered video generation model that can create realistic clips from just a few sentences.

OpenAI’s board unanimously rejected the offer, and Altman doubled down that the firm is “not for sale.”

“Probably his [Musk’s] whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Altman said during an interview with Bloomberg at the Paris AI summit. “I feel for the guy. I don’t think he’s a happy person.”

Emanuel criticized Altman’s comments, calling it a distraction from OpenAI trying to move away from its nonprofit structure.

“All I say to you is: Sam said that Elon was ‘unhappy as a person.’ Yeah, thank you for your analysis!” he said sarcastically. “Elon is unhappy because you’re phony and trying to get away with cheating the charity and its original mission. Elon is not.”

Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman, but later cut ties with the firm in 2018 and launched his own rival company xAI.

He has been trying to block the company from pursuing a for-profit structure in court.

“The consortium of investors led by Musk isn’t proposing to buy the charity, OpenAI, but rather its majority share of Altman and Microsoft’s for-profit OpenAI enterprise,” Emanuel told the radio show, saying he wanted to clarify “miscommunications and misconceptions” coming from OpenAI.

Emanuel’s brother is Rahm Emanuel, the former Biden and Obama White House official who recently took a job as a left-leaning pundit at CNN.

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Stephen Collopy

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