Who Owns ChatGPT?

If you're wondering who owns ChatGPT, you're in the right place. The transformative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot has launched a new era of technology as big tech companies, start-ups, and others are racing to harness the power of generative AI, first unveiled by ChatGPT.

ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI, an organization founded with the mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. It was first made available to the public in November 2022.

However, the earliest version of the technology underpinning it, GPT-1 (an acronym for generative pre-trained transformer), was introduced in June 2018 and has evolved and improved over the years. OpenAI has also developed other generative AI products, but the company is best known for ChatGPT.

Who owns it?

Who is the owner of ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI, which has a complicated organizational structure. The start-up was founded as a nonprofit, but it discovered the model was unsustainable for funding its research. In 2019, it created OpenAI LP, a "capped-profit" company it described as a hybrid between a for-profit and nonprofit company.

At the time, the company also said that running large-scale AI systems required significant computational power, and it realized it needed "billions of dollars to invest in the upcoming years into large-scale cloud comput[ing], attracting and retaining talented people, and building AI supercomputers."

That was the same year Microsoft (MSFT -1.36%) first invested in the company. Microsoft has been its primary benefactor since then, investing an estimated $13 billion in OpenAI, with a percentage of its investment coming in the form of computing power from its Azure cloud computing service.

However, the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI is also complicated. Microsoft said in a statement in December 2023 that it doesn't own any portion of OpenAI and is just entitled to a share of profits.

In February 2024, OpenAI was valued at $80 billion. It's received funding from venture capital firms, including Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and K2 Global. Still, OpenAI's complete ownership structure has not been shared publicly.

Largest shareholders

Who are the largest shareholders?

1. Microsoft

Microsoft may claim it doesn't own any stake in OpenAI, but it clearly has a close relationship with the start-up and is effectively its largest shareholder. It's the only individual company or investor specifically identified in OpenAI's corporate structure.

Microsoft first invested in OpenAI in 2019 and is estimated to have invested $13 billion in OpenAI thus far. In early 2023, Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, giving the start-up a valuation of $29 billion. According to reports, Microsoft would get a 75% share of profits until it recoups the $10 billion it invested. From that point, Microsoft would get a 49% share of the company's profits until it reaches its cap.

2. Reid Hoffman

Another major investor in OpenAI is Reid Hoffman. The LinkedIn co-founder was one of several investors who committed to invest a combined $1 billion in the company when it was founded.

Hoffman was on the board of directors until November 2023, when he stepped down to avoid an appearance of conflict; he also co-founded the start-up Inflection AI, although the start-up company later folded.

3. Peter Thiel

Like Hoffman, Peter Thiel was one of an early group of Silicon Valley bigwigs to pledge to invest a combined $1 billion in OpenAI. Thiel has long been something of a mentor for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Thiel has had a prolific career in Silicon Valley as a co-founder of PayPal (PYPL 1.75%) and the current chair of Palantir (PLTR 1.02%).

4. Elon Musk

Tesla (TSLA 15.24%) CEO Elon Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI and a key source of funding early in the company's history. OpenAI says Musk invested close to $45 million of his own money in OpenAI.

However, Musk left the company in 2018 over a dispute that arose when the company added a for-profit component. Musk suggested taking a majority equity stake in the company and attaching it to Tesla, but the board balked at the idea. It's unclear whether Musk still owns a stake in OpenAI, but he played a pivotal role in OpenAI's early days. For that, he's worth including in the conversation.

5. YCombinator

YCombinator, the Silicon Valley incubator, was the first institutional investor to invest in OpenAI, doing so in 2016, according to Crunchbase. Before running OpenAI, Altman was the CEO of YCombinator.

6. Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures was another of the first venture capital (VC) firms to invest in OpenAI, putting in $50 million in 2019 and taking a 5% stake. Principal Vinod Khosla said there was no good way to do due diligence on the company, but he had confidence that AI would be a significant technology. He's been proven right. The stake is now worth more than $1 billion.

7. Tiger Global

VC firm Tiger Global first invested in OpenAI in 2021 in a funding round with several other VC firms. Tiger Global was also one of several firms to push back against OpenAI when the board fired Sam Altman for a few days, only to bring him back after an employee and investor uproar.

8. Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz, one of the best-known Silicon Valley VC firms, participated in OpenAI's funding round in April 2023. However, co-founder Marc Andreessen criticized OpenAI's defense capabilities, saying its security protocol was "Swiss cheese." Andreessen Horowitz is also in the process of raising $6 billion to invest in AI, showing it's betting big on the new technology.

9. Sequoia Capital

Sequoia first invested in OpenAI in 2021 and is also focused on AI, with 60% of its investments in AI companies in 2023, up 15% from 2022. Further, it invested in a number of other AI companies, like Collaborative Robotics.

Board of directors

Who is on the board of directors?

As of April 6, 2024, the OpenAI board had seven members.

1. Bret Taylor

Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce (CRM 0.16%), is the chair of the OpenAI board. Taylor was named chair in an upheaval that took place after Sam Altman was briefly ousted as CEO of OpenAI by the previous board in November 2023.

2. Larry Summers

Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard University, joined OpenAI's board at the same time as Taylor after the kerfuffle over Altman's temporary departure.

3. Adam D'Angelo

D'Angelo joined the OpenAI board in 2018. He was an advisor and investor in Instagram before it was acquired by Meta Platforms (META -2.19%) in 2012. He is the only member of the board of directors to remain from before Altman was voted out. D'Angelo was one of the members who voted to oust Altman.

4. Sue Desmond-Hellmann

Sue Desmond-Hellmann joined the board in March of 2024. She was formerly CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a physician serving on the boards of Pfizer (PFE 1.18%) and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

5. Nicole Seligman

Nicole Seligman also joined the board of directors in March 2024. Seligman is the former executive vice president of Sony (SONY 0.79%). She also serves on the boards of Paramount Global (PARA 3.53%), MeiraGTx Holdings (MGTX 2.08%), and Intuitive Machines (LUNR -0.18%).

6. Fidji Simo

Fidji Simo, the CEO and chair of Instacart (CART 0.03%), joined the board in March 2024. She also sits on the board of directors at Shopify (SHOP 0.85%) and was vice president and head of Meta's Facebook app after spending a decade of her career at Facebook.

7. Sam Altman

Altman rejoined the board in March 2024. Altman has been OpenAI CEO since May 2019, reshaping it as a "capped profit" company and forging the partnership with Microsoft. Earlier in his career, Altman was the CEO of YCombinator, the tech incubator.

How to invest

How to invest in ChatGPT

ChatGPT parent OpenAI is a privately held company, so there are no easy ways to invest in it directly. It's not a stock you can simply purchase through a brokerage.

The best way to get exposure to it is by investing in Microsoft. The Redmond, Washington-based giant has invested billions in OpenAI, and the two companies have a close working relationship. Microsoft has used OpenAI's technology to power products from Azure to GitHub to Microsoft Office and Bing. In other words, if OpenAI continues to lead the AI race, Microsoft will be a winner, too.

Related investing topics

If you are a high-net-worth individual, you may be able to invest directly with a VC firm in OpenAI. However, you will need to be an accredited investor to do so.

Due to its unique corporate structure, OpenAI is unlikely to go public anytime soon. Yet, the VC firms that have invested in it will eventually want an exit, either through an acquisition or an initial public offering (IPO).

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