OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has a net worth estimated at $500 million, driven primarily by his early stage investments in companies including Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit and Pinterest, according to wealth tracker Celebrity Net Worth.
Despite OpenAI’s valuation of about $29 billion, Mr Altman, 38, does not have an equity stake in the artificial intelligence-powered start-up behind the popular ChatGPT tool and digital image creator DALL-E.
On Tuesday, Mr Altman was asked by Senator John Kennedy during a US Senate panel that is examining AI if he makes “a lot of money”.
“No. I’m paid enough for health insurance and have no equity in OpenAI,” Mr Altman said.
“I’m doing this because I love it.”
Mr Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Tesla chief executive and Twitter owner Elon Musk, billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Mr Musk – the world’s second-richest person with a net worth of $166 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index – left OpenAI in 2018 after a disagreement over its direction.
Launched in December, ChatGPT answers users’ questions with human-like responses based on information available on the internet.
However, the technology has raised concerns about the risk of misinformation and a threat to jobs.
In January, technology company Microsoft announced the third phase of its partnership with OpenAI through a new multi-year, multibillion-dollar investment believed to be about $10 billion.
Microsoft also invested in the company in 2019 and 2021. It aims to accelerate artificial intelligence breakthroughs to ensure the benefits are broadly shared with the world, Microsoft said at the time.
OpenAI was also in talks to sell shares in a tender offering that valued it at about $29 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported in January.
Mr Altman founded his first company, Loopt, in 2005 at the age of 19. A location-based social networking application, it was bought by Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million in 2012 after failing to gain traction, according to media reports.
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The former Y Combinator president has invested in 82 companies, according to investor information platform Crunchbase.
His most recent investment was on May 1, when he joined a Series A funding round in campus.edu that raised $29 million.
Mr Altman and Discord founder Jason Citron are lead investors in the US-based online college.
