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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been named a billionaire by Forbes, with a large part of his wealth coming from personal investments in companies such as Reddit and Stripe, as well as property in California and Hawaii.
Altman, 38, joined the list just a week after pop idol Taylor Swift and he currently holds the 2,692nd rank in the list of billionaires compiled by the finance magazine.
At the top of the list was LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton founder Bernard Arnault, followed by Tesla chief Elon Musk, former Amazon head Jeff Bezos, and Meta head Mark Zuckerberg.
Altman is also investing in nuclear energy and has backed the energy company Helion, as well as the human health startup Retro Biosciences.
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Altman did not take any equity stake in OpenAI upon adding the for-profit OpenAI LP entity in 2019, reported the Semafor outlet.
Apart from working on ChatGPT, which launched in late 2022 to become a top consumer app in 2023 that sparked a generative AI race between Big Tech giants Microsoft and Google, Altman is linked to the Worldcoin cryptocurrency project.
The crypto token for the project hit an all time high price of $11.82 a month ago, and is up by 337.35% in the past year.
This venture aims to give everyone on the planet a digital ID and some cryptocurrency, in exchange for their biometric data. Worldcoin is currently being investigated in several countries over privacy concerns and fears that the company’s volunteer-based operators are coercing poverty-struck people to hand over vital data.
Since the release of ChatGPT, Altman has become a much sought after voice in the AI space, and met with leaders all over the world in order to discuss AI regulation and innovation.
He was fired for several days in November last year by his company and later offered a position at Microsoft, before being reinstated as OpenAI’s CEO.
