SoftBank is investing $500 million into OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, The Information reported on Monday.
The investment from SoftBank, the telecom and tech-focused Japanese holding company, comes as OpenAI is looking to raise $6.5 billion in its latest round of funding. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the funding round values the AI company at $150 billion.
This was SoftBank’s first investment in OpenAI; Apple declined to participate in the company’s latest funding round.
One hurdle towards reaching that $150 billion valuation, though: whether OpenAI can removes its profit cap on investors. OpenAI started as a non-profit in 2015, but has worked to shift its business structure in recent years; in 2019, the company added a “capped-profit” subsidiary, where investors were blocked from surpassing 100 times their investment.
And more changes are on the horizon. OpenAI is working to restructure its business and become a for-profit operation, a move that would make CEO Sam Altman $10.5 billion richer. Until now, Altman, who co-founded OpenAI along with Elon Musk and several other tech entrepreneurs, was being paid a $65,000 per year salary.
Last year, Altman said he had “no equity” in the company, while testifying before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee on AI oversight.
“I’m doing this because I love it,” he said.
That answer was fairly misleading, however. While Altman didn’t have equity in OpenAI, he did own stock in Y Combinator … which owned stock in OpenAI, as The Guardian reported last month. Indirectly owning even a fraction of the shares in OpenAI — which has been looking to raise money at a $150 billion valuation — would’ve been worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Last month, OpenAI said 200 million people use its AI-chatbot ChatGPT each month.
