Microsoft consolidates its position as OpenAI's majority shareholder and regains a $4 trillion valuation.
The agreement between both technologies includes obtaining an AI system more powerful than the human brain.
OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, announced Tuesday that it has completed its restructuring and signed a new deal with Microsoft to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical AI system that surpasses the capabilities of the human brain and that experts say could arrive within the next decade.
start-up The company said its nonprofit is now called the OpenAI Foundation, which holds an estimated $130 billion stake in its for-profit division, making it one of the deepest-pocketed philanthropies in history, according to the company. “OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that AI benefits all of humanity and will be driven by both the company and the foundation. The more successful OpenAI is as a company, the greater the value of your equity stake, which the organization will use to fund its philanthropic work,” the company said in its statement.
Under the new structure, the OpenAI Foundation will hold a 26% stake in the for-profit division, with 47% held by current and former employees and investors. Microsoft, which has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI and has backed the company since 2019, said Tuesday that it supports OpenAI’s recapitalization and now owns a Common Benefit and Interest Company (SBIC) valued at $135 billion, or roughly 27% of OpenAI’s total.
The news comes after more than a year of negotiations between OpenAI and the attorneys general in California and Delaware. Had they not approved the restructuring, OpenAI would not have been able to move forward.
More than $4 trillion
Following the announcement of this agreement, the stock price of the American technology company Microsoft has once again surpassed the $4 trillion (€3.431 trillion) market capitalization barrier. Shares traded at $553.72 (€474.92), up 4.17% from the opening price. However, they moderated their gains to 2.19%, or $543.17 (€465.87), at 7:30 p.m. Catalan time.
Microsoft's total valuation is estimated at around $4.03 trillion (€3.457 trillion), according to market data. By surpassing the $4 trillion mark, as it did on July 31, Microsoft has joined Nvidia and Apple in the select club of companies that have achieved this milestone.
In fact, Apple has debuted at 4 billion just this Tuesday, helped by the good sales data of the iPhone 17 in the United States and China. For its part, Nvidia was the first company in history to scale to $4 billion on July 9th..
