OpenAI ‘pleads’ for exclusive funding, raises $6.6 billion, leaving Elon Musk’s xAI and other AI firms to fend for themselves

OpenAI ‘pleads’ for exclusive funding, raises $6.6 billion, leaving Elon Musk’s xAI and other AI firms to fend for themselves

What you need to know

  • OpenAI received $6.6 billion in investment recently, including backing by Microsoft and NVIDIA.
  • The AI company asked investors to not fund competing tech giants, including Anthropic, xAI, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), Perplexity, and Glean.
  • Despite reportedly losing billions of dollars this year, OpenAI’s most recent valuation sits at $157 billion.
  • Much of OpenAI’s value is the result of projected future earnings and the company’s early dominance in the AI space.

As an observer with a keen interest in the tech industry and a background in venture capital, I find the recent $6.6 billion investment in OpenAI intriguing, albeit a bit unusual. The exclusivity clause requested by OpenAI from its investors is not common practice, especially given the competitive nature of the AI sector.


In a recent fundraising round, OpenAI garnered $6.6 billion from Microsoft, NVIDIA, and other significant investors. However, this investment seems to come with certain conditions. Surprisingly, it’s not the investors who are imposing these restrictions, but rather OpenAI itself. The company has requested that its investors avoid investing in competing firms like Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI. I use quotation marks around “request” because, according to the Financial Times, OpenAI made it clear that this funding agreement includes an exclusivity clause.

Investors typically need to be cautious when dealing with competing companies they invest in due to their understanding of the internal operations. However, complete avoidance deals are less frequent. Interestingly, OpenAI seems to have gone a step beyond by providing its investors a list of firms to avoid. These include Anthropic, xAI, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), Perplexity, and Glean. It’s worth mentioning that SSI was co-founded by Ilya Sutskever, who also co-founded OpenAI. In simpler terms, OpenAI investors are advised to avoid dealing with a select group of companies, including those founded by one of the co-founders of OpenAI.

The deal includes an assignment, but we expect you to actively contribute to our company in a significant manner to prevent any conflicts of interest with our competitors,” was stated by a reliable source to Financial Times.

According to reports, there’s no formal contract preventing OpenAI’s investors from funding rival projects at this time.

In this recent investment round, both Microsoft and NVIDIA contributed a total of $6.6 billion to OpenAI. However, it appears that Apple expressed interest initially but decided against participation at the final moment, as per various sources.

After receiving investment, OpenAI’s estimated worth stood at an impressive $157 billion. A significant portion of this value is attributed to OpenAI’s potential for leadership in the AI industry. Reports indicate that OpenAI incurred losses amounting to $5 billion in 2024, leading some to speculate about its financial stability. Similar to other tech startups, OpenAI has secured investments and funding with the aim of eventually generating profits.

OpenAI funding

As a tech enthusiast, I can’t help but acknowledge that OpenAI is a significant player in the realm of artificial intelligence. However, it’s important to remember that they’re not the only game-changer in this field. In fact, Elon Musk, who’s currently engaged in a legal dispute with OpenAI, has his own AI venture, xAI. This week, NVIDIA unveiled its advanced open-source AI model, adding another layer of competition to the mix. To stay ahead, OpenAI needs to keep refining their models and introducing fresh features.

As artificial intelligence continues to grab attention and become a key component in various software systems and processes, OpenAI is aiming to lead the pack. Given that their operational expenses run into billions, they’re looking for effective methods to increase revenue. This might involve charging premium subscription fees, potentially reaching up to $2,000 per month.

As a dedicated fan, I’d like to share some insights about Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. He’s acknowledged that creating tools similar to ChatGPT without utilizing copyrighted content is quite challenging. Yet, he argues that existing copyright laws don’t explicitly forbid using copyrighted material to educate AI models. However, these viewpoints and OpenAI’s actions have put the company squarely in the crosshairs of several copyright infringement lawsuits.

According to Altman, we might only be a matter of “a few thousand days” from achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). However, there are some, such as a former researcher at OpenAI, who believe that the organization may not yet be equipped to tackle such an advancement.

Leading firms like Microsoft, NVIDIA, and others will be providing support to OpenAI as they gear up for Advanced General Intelligence (AGI) and find ways to commercialize their artificial intelligence technology.

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2024-10-03 17:13