Elon Musk attempted to enlist Mark Zuckerberg in his near-$100bn bid to take control of OpenAI this year, according to a court filing, in what would have been a rare alliance between two billionaires who have previously challenged each other to a “cage fight”.

In response to legal questioning, Musk told OpenAI he had communicated with the Meta chief executive about potentially helping to finance a $97.4bn bid for the ChatGPT maker in February, the filing said. Neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed a letter of intent to join, according to the filing.

Any potential partnership between Musk and Zuckerberg would stand in stark contrast to previous interactions in 2023, when the pair taunted each other online, going as far as trying to arrange a physical fight, after Zuckerberg launched Threads as a rival to Musk’s X.