Nandini Roy Choudhury, writer
Brief news
- Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, holds over 12.2 million shares in Reddit, valued at approximately $1.2 billion following a recent share price surge.
- Altman previously served on Reddit’s board and invested $60 million during its growth phase.
- OpenAI recently completed a financing round, valuing the company at $157 billion, while Altman plans no major equity stake in the firm.
Detailed news
According to the post-market trade on Tuesday, Sam Altman, the contentious CEO of OpenAI, owns a stake in the social media firm Reddit that is worth more than one billion dollars.
After making his initial investment in Reddit more than a decade ago, Altman now owns over 12.2 million shares of the firm. During extended trading, the share price of Reddit increased by around twenty percent after the company announced quarterly earnings that were better than expected and offered an upbeat investment outlook.
Altman’s interests are estimated to be worth around $1.2 billion based on the share price of Reddit after hours, which is currently at $98.
Altman was widely recognized as a startup investor and the former president of Y Combinator before the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, which experienced a significant surge in popularity. Altman’s investment portfolio comprises Airbnb, Uber, Instacart, Stripe, and Asana, but Reddit is one of his most promising investments. Altman was a member of the social media platform’s board until approximately January 2022, when the company announced that he had recently resigned.
In March, Reddit was publicly traded at $34 per share.
Altman is one of the company’s greatest shareholders, trailing only Condé Nast parent Advance Magazine Publishers, Chinese internet behemoth Tencent, and Fidelity. Altman invested a total of $60 million in Reddit over two funding phases in 2021, during a period of significant growth in the technology sector, as indicated by the company’s IPO prospectus from earlier this year.
Over the course of the “lockup period,” which ended in September, top shareholders were prohibited from selling their shares of Reddit for a period of six months. There is no indication that Altman has sold any of his stock.
A request for comment was not promptly addressed by Altman.
At the beginning of this month, OpenAI successfully completed its most recent financing round, which resulted in a value of $157 billion. This valuation takes into account the $6.6 billion that the business gained from a diverse group of investment firms and technology organizations. In September, CNBC verified that the organization anticipates approximately $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year.
There are no intentions for Altman to earn a “giant equity stake” in the firm, as he informed the employees of the company one month ago.
OpenAI announced in March that Altman will be returning to the board of directors of the business after the conclusion of an internal inquiry conducted by the law firm WilmerHale in the United States into the circumstances that led to his unexpected dismissal (and subsequent reinstatement) at the end of the previous year.
Source : CNBC News
