According to sources familiar with the situation, Microsoft Corp. is in talks to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, the company that owns ChatGPT, valuing the San Francisco-based company at $29 billion.
The investment also comes from other venture firms, and in recent weeks, deal documents were circulated to potential investors with the intention of closing the round by the end of 2022, according to the article.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment, while Microsoft declined to do so.
This comes after a Wall Street Journal story claiming that OpenAI was in discussions to sell its current stock to venture capital firms including Thrive Capital and Founders Fund for an estimated $29 billion valuation.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc., and investor Sam Altman launched OpenAI, which released the ChatGPT chatbot for free public testing on Nov. 30. A chatbot is a piece of software created to replicate human-like dialogue in response to user input.
According to the Semafor study, the funding conditions stipulated that Microsoft would get 75% of OpenAI’s income up until the point at which OpenAI had earned back its initial investment from ChatGPT and other businesses like the image creation tool Dall-E.
The report claimed that upon reaching that milestone, Microsoft would own a 49 percent stake in OpenAI, along with another 49 percent from other investors and a further 2 percent from the nonprofit parent of OpenAI, without specifying the exact percentages of ownership until Microsoft received its money back.
Microsoft, which invested $1bn in OpenAI in 2019, was working to launch a version of its search engine Bing using the AI behind ChatGPT, the Information reported last week.
