In September 2024, Reuters reported that OpenAI was planning a restructuring from a non-profit to a for-profit firm with the intention to make it “extra enticing to buyers.”
Nonetheless, after encountering backlash and potential authorized conflicts, in Might 2025 OpenAI’s administration determined to stay a non-profit whereas nonetheless changing its for-profit arm right into a public profit company.
That plan is simpler as of mid-September 2025, in response to the Wall Avenue Journal, as the corporate’s tech companion and main funder Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) have reached a brand new road-block-clearing, however at the moment non-binding, deal. The Journal reported that the OpenAI nonprofit firm and Microsoft would every have a stake of about 30 p.c within the for-profit agency.
OpenAI launched a brand new spherical of funding totaling US$40 billion in late March 2025 projected to deliver its valuation to US$300 billion. Japanese multinational funding agency SoftBank made up 75 p.c of the funding, whereas Microsoft, and funding corporations Coatue Administration, Altimeter Capital and Thrive Capital additionally took half within the increase.
The US Division of Protection (DoD) awarded a US$200 million contract to OpenAI in June 2025 to supply the DoD with synthetic intelligence instruments for addressing nationwide safety challenges, together with cyber protection and warfare.
Huge information dropped on September 22, 2025, that NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) plans to speculate US$100 billion in OpenAI by means of a strategic partnership centered on the generative AI firm deploying a minimal of 10 gigawatts of AI datacenters utilizing NVIDIA’s techniques. If the deal is finalized, the pair count on to deploy the primary gigawatt in H2 2026.
Many buyers are questioning if it is attainable to spend money on ChatGPT inventory, and if there are different methods to spend money on generative AI and OpenAI. Right here the Investing Information Community (INN) solutions these questions and extra, shedding gentle on this new panorama.
What’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT?
Created by San Francisco-based tech lab OpenAI, ChatGPT is a generative AI software program software that makes use of a machine studying approach referred to as reinforcement studying from human suggestions (RLHF) to emulate human-written conversations based mostly on a wide variety of consumer prompts. This type of software program is healthier generally known as an AI chatbot.
ChatGPT learns language by coaching on texts gleaned from throughout the web, together with on-line encyclopedias, books, tutorial journals, information websites and blogs. Based mostly on this coaching, the AI chatbot generates textual content by making predictions about which phrases (or tokens) may be strung collectively to supply probably the most appropriate response.
Greater than one million folks engaged with ChatGPT throughout the first week of its launch for free public testing on November 30, 2022. The introduction of ChatGPT shortly ushered in a brand new period within the tech trade.
“With the launch of ChatGPT late in 2022, the true scale of its disruptive potential was extra realized internationally in 2023,” mentioned Naseem Husain, senior vp and exchange-traded fund (ETF) strategist at Horizons ETFs, in an interview with the Investing Information Community. “Its success has sparked a wave of generative and chat AI fashions, from Midjourney to Grok.”
Based mostly on this success, OpenAI created a extra {powerful} model of the ChatGPT system referred to as GPT-4, which was launched in March 2023. This iteration of ChatGPT can settle for visible inputs, is rather more exact and may show a better stage of experience in varied topics. Due to this, GPT-4 can describe photos in vivid element and ace standardized checks.
In contrast to its predecessor, GPT-4 does not have any closing dates on what data it will probably entry; nonetheless, AI researcher and professor Dr. Oren Etzioni has mentioned that the chatbot continues to be horrible at discussing the long run and producing new concepts. It additionally hasn’t misplaced its tendency to ship incorrect data with too excessive a level of confidence.
Additional enhancing on its product, in Might 2024 OpenAI launched Chat GPT-4o, with the o standing for omni. OpenAI describes GPT-4o as “a step in direction of rather more pure human-computer interplay—it accepts as enter any mixture of textual content, audio, picture, and video and generates any mixture of textual content, audio, and picture outputs.”
This model has executed away with the lagging response time afflicting GPT-4. This proves particularly useful for producing quick translations throughout conversations between audio system of various languages. It additionally permits customers to interrupt the chatbot to pose a brand new question to change responses.
Extra not too long ago, in December 2024, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Professional subscriptions concentrating on engineers and teachers. For US$200 month-to-month, customers have almost limitless entry to all ChatGPT fashions and instruments.
The ChatGPT 3.5 and ChatGPT-4 platforms are free to make use of, and may be accessed by way of the online. These with an iPhone or iPad also can use ChatGPT by means of an app, and an Android model launched in July 2023. OpenAI additionally launched a paid subscription, ChatGPT Plus for enterprise use, in August 2023. ChatGPT Plus provides customers entry to GPT-4 and the most recent iteration GPT-4o.
ChatGPT-5 was launched on August 7, 2025. OpenAI payments this newest iteration of its generative AI know-how as a “important leap in intelligence over all our earlier fashions, that includes state-of-the-art efficiency throughout coding, math, writing, well being, visible notion, and extra.” The fundamental model is obtainable to all customers, whereas there are upgraded capabilities for Plus and Professional subscribers.
Nonetheless, for some techies GPT-5 doesn’t dwell as much as the hype. Following the discharge, customers took to social media to specific their disappointment and report humorous errors made by the chatbot.
What’s the Stargate Venture?
The Stargate Venture is an AI three way partnership centered on constructing new AI infrastructure within the US by means of US$500 billion in investments. It was introduced on January 21, 2025.
Stargate’s preliminary funding is coming from OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) and UAE-based know-how fund MGX. Along with OpenAI and Oracle, Stargate’s know-how companions embrace Microsoft, NVIDIA, and British semiconductor and software program design firm Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM).
Newly re-elected US President Donald Trump unveiled Stargate throughout a press convention on the White Home highlighting the significance of funding in US AI infrastructure. Through the announcement, OpenAI’s Altman, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son credited Trump’s return to workplace as a significant catalyst in making Stargate a actuality. The development of information facilities for the Stargate Venture are already underway in Texas, in response to Ellison.
How a lot has Microsoft invested in OpenAI?
Ascannio / Shutterstock
Over time, Microsoft has reportedly invested almost US$14 billion in OpenAI to assist the small tech agency create its ultra-powerful AI chatbot.
As for the way Microsoft may benefit from its funding in OpenAI, OpenAI formally licensed its applied sciences to Microsoft in 2020 in a then-exclusive partnership. Certainly, Pitchbook has described the deal as an “unprecedented milestone” for generative AI know-how. Since then, Microsoft has made good use of OpenAI’s know-how in creating new development in its Azure cloud computing enterprise.
Nonetheless, the connection between the 2 has modified in latest months.
Notably, Microsoft shouldn’t be a financier of the Stargate Venture three way partnership, and is as a substitute simply described as a know-how companion. In accordance with OpenAI’s press launch, the brand new three way partnership builds on its current partnership with Microsoft.
Microsoft’s lack of a funding function in Stargate led some to marvel if the trillion-dollar tech agency had soured on its relationship with OpenAI. This conclusion was comprehensible given studies that Microsoft refused to make an even bigger contribution than the US$750 million it invested through the OpenAI US$6.6 billion funding spherical in October 2024.
Moreover, Microsoft modified the contract between the 2 corporations and is now not the unique cloud supplier for OpenAI, however has the appropriate of first refusal for offers the AI agency could make with different cloud corporations.
As Bloomberg know-how reporter Dina Bass defined, Microsoft stands to profit from its function as a know-how companion with out having to speculate a dime into the venture.
“Microsoft views the revised contract with OpenAI as advantageous, in response to folks aware of the corporate’s pondering. The software program large retains its share of OpenAI’s income and is the most important investor in an organization that will now turn out to be much more precious — although the scale of that stake may change because the startup works to restructure as a for-profit,” wrote Bass. “And Microsoft additionally nonetheless has entry to OpenAI fashions, even when they’re skilled in a knowledge middle funded by Softbank or Oracle.”
Within the spring of 2025, there have been studies that Microsoft and OpenAI’s relationship was on the point of an enormous breakup. The tech large had been pushing for a a lot bigger proportion of OpenAI’s revenues than the 20 p.c it at the moment enjoys. In accordance with the Wall Avenue Journal (WSJ) in June 2025, OpenAI was contemplating making antitrust complaints about Microsoft to regulators. Nonetheless, it appears the pair of tech corporations have reached a extra amenable consensus about the way forward for ChatGPT and their partnership.
“OpenAI can be placing closing touches on the possession construction behind the brand new for-profit firm it’s attempting to create. The corporate mentioned it plans to maintain the nonprofit’s management over the brand new for-profit and endow it with a stake valued at greater than $100 billion,” reported WSJ. “That might make the nonprofit one of many largest philanthropies on the planet on paper, though it’s unclear how lengthy it will take for funds to be accessible for distribution.”
Elon Musk’s place on OpenAI
DIA TV / Shutterstock
OpenAI was based in 2015 by Altman, its present CEO, in addition to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and different big-name buyers, resembling enterprise capitalist Peter Thiel and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Musk left his place on OpenAI’s board of administrators in 2018 to concentrate on Tesla and its pursuit of autonomous car know-how.
Just a few days after ChatGPT grew to become accessible for public testing, Musk took to X, previously generally known as Twitter, to say, “ChatGPT is frightening good. We’re not removed from dangerously sturdy AI.” That very same day, he introduced that X had shut the door on OpenAI’s entry to its database so it may now not use it for RLHF coaching.
His purpose: “OpenAI was began as open-source & non-profit. Neither are nonetheless true.”
Furthering his feud with OpenAI, Musk filed a lawsuit towards the corporate in March 2024 for an alleged breach of contract. The crux of his grievance was that OpenAI has damaged the “founding settlement” made between the founders (Altman, Greg Brockman and himself) that the corporate would stay a non-profit. Altman and OpenAI have denied there was such an settlement and that Musk was eager on an eventual for-profit construction.
Musk dropped the lawsuit three months later with out giving a purpose, reported Reuters. The day earlier than he dropped the lawsuit, he reacted to the information that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is partnering with OpenAI to include ChatGPT with Apple units. On X, Musk declared, “If Apple integrates OpenAI on the OS (working system) stage, then Apple units can be banned at my corporations. That’s an unacceptable safety violation.” It must be famous that OpenAI has mentioned queries accomplished on Apple units won’t be saved by OpenAI. By August 2024, Musk had resumed his litigation in federal courtroom.
It appears that evidently the US authorities additionally has questions concerning the restructuring of the non-public firm and the involvement of tech large Microsoft, as reported by Bloomberg. In early January 2025, the Monetary Press additionally reported the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) has raised questions concerning the potential anti-trust violations within the newly rising AI know-how house arising from Microsoft’s partnership with and investments in OpenAI.
After all, Musk took to X to weigh in on the Stargate Venture, suggesting OpenAI and its companions don’t even have the US$500 million they’ve pledged to speculate. Sam Altman was fast to answer, telling Musk he’s mistaken and welcoming him to go to their information middle underneath building in Texas.
Nonetheless, Musk shouldn’t be alone in his skepticism. For instance, Atreides Administration Chief Funding Workplace Gavin Baker additionally questioned the deal on X. “Stargate is a superb identify however the $500b is a ridiculous quantity and nobody ought to take it significantly,” Baker wrote, backing up his assertion by explaining the monetary positions of every of the companions. “Nowhere near $500b. Everybody ought to simply begin issuing press releases for $1 trillion AI tasks.”
OpenAI criticisms and lawsuits
Whereas ChatGPT has served as a significant step ahead in generative AI know-how, there are a lot of technical and moral issues with this system which have emerged because it launched, together with fears over job destruction and focused disinformation campaigns.
Accuracy of knowledge in ChatGPT’s solutions shouldn’t be assured. Its choice of which phrases to string collectively are literally predictions — not as fallible as mere guesses, however nonetheless fallible. Even the 4.0 model is “nonetheless shouldn’t be totally dependable (it “hallucinates” info and makes reasoning errors),” says the corporate, which emphasizes that customers ought to train warning when using the know-how.
Certainly, ChatGPT’s failings can have harmful real-life penalties. Amongst different unfavorable purposes, the tech can be utilized to unfold misinformation, perform phishing e-mail scams or write malicious code.
There’s additionally the worry amongst academics that the know-how is resulting in an unwelcome rise in tutorial dishonesty, with college students utilizing ChatGPT to write down essays or full their homework.
“Academics and college directors have been scrambling to catch college students utilizing the software to cheat, and they’re fretting concerning the havoc ChatGPT may wreak on their lesson plans,” writes New York Instances tech columnist Kevin Roose.
Many lawsuits towards OpenAI have emerged as nicely. A number of information retailers, together with the the New York Instances, have launched copyright lawsuits towards OpenAI, and among the plaintiffs are additionally searching for damages from the non-public tech agency’s very public companion Microsoft.
Moreover, the Authors Guild, which represents a bunch of distinguished authors, launched a class-action lawsuit towards OpenAI that’s calling for a licensing system that may enable authors to choose out of getting their books used to coach AI, and would require AI corporations to pay for the fabric they do use.
In October, OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji blew the whistle on the corporate, reporting that the agency was violating US copyright legal guidelines. He died one month later in what was dominated a suicide, however the investigation continues to be open.
Cybersecurity dangers are additionally a priority for ChatGPT customers, and up to date occasions alongside these strains add validity to Musk’s warning. For one, in 2024 ChatGPT for macOS was found to be breaching Apple’s safety guidelines by storing information as plain textual content slightly than encryption, making it attainable for different apps to entry.
What’s the way forward for OpenAI and ChatGPT?
What concerning the long-term objectives for OpenAI and ChatGPT? For a lot of the tech leaders on this house, the finish recreation is synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) — a system that may carry out any perform the human mind can, together with self-teaching, summary pondering and understanding trigger and impact.
As uptake will increase, AI know-how is taking on the function of people and can probably proceed doing so in plenty of fields, from content material creation and customer support to transcription and translation providers, and even in graphic design, software program engineering and paralegal fields.
Along with Microsoft’s use of the ChatGPT know-how as a part of Copilot, different corporations are working with OpenAI to include the know-how into their platforms, together with Canva, Duolingo (NASDAQ:DUOL), Expedia Group (NASDAQ:EXPE), Intercom, Salesforce (NASDAQ:CRM), Stripe, Tinder, Upwork (NASDAQ:UPWK) and Visa (NYSE:V).
For 2025, OpenAI is specializing in creating agentic AI capabilities into its ChatGPT platform. Agentic AI, part of the evolution in direction of AGI, includes AI techniques and fashions that may act autonomously and full duties with out a lot human steering. Early in January, OpenAI introduced the rollout of latest process options for ChatGPT Professional, Plus and Groups customers. Whereas nonetheless within the beta stage, these options enable customers to schedule future duties to be accomplished by ChatGPT, resembling a weekly information transient or reminders about essential conferences.
OpenAI first debuted its foray into agentic AI in September 2024 with the introduction of ChatGPT o1, stating “We have developed a brand new sequence of AI fashions designed to spend extra time pondering earlier than they reply.” The discharge of the following iterations of this mannequin, ChatGPT o3 mini and o4 mini occurred within the first half of 2025.
The latest launch of Chinese language startup DeepSeek’s AI assistant could current an issue for OpenAI and the US tech trade as an entire. In what tech gurus like Marc Andreesen name AI’s Sputnik second, DeepSeek unseated ChatGPT as probably the most downloaded free app within the Apple App Retailer, at reportedly a fraction of the fee. For reference, in 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik, the earth’s first synthetic satellite tv for pc, beating out america and sparking a Chilly Conflict house exploration race between the 2 nations.
The DeepSeek launch set off a big dump in know-how shares on January 27, 2025, particularly among the many Magnificent Seven members, together with NVIDIA, Microsoft and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
When will OpenAI go public?
OpenAI inventory shouldn’t be at the moment publicly traded, and regardless of the plan to transition to incorporate each a non-profit and for-profit enterprise, there aren’t any indicators of an on preliminary public providing (IPO) within the works for 2025. For now, buyers can acquire publicity by means of associated tech corporations mentioned under.
Which shares will profit probably the most from AI chatbot know-how?
Whereas most corporations specializing in generative AI stay within the enterprise capital stage, there are many AI shares for these within the house. INN’s article 5 Canadian Synthetic Intelligence Shares, ASX AI Shares: 5 Greatest Firms, World AI Shares: 9 Greatest Firms in 2025 and 12 Generative AI Shares to Watch as ChatGPT Soars consists of some examples.
Apart from corporations straight tied to generative AI know-how, which shares are prone to get a lift from generative AI developments?
There are a number of verticals within the tech trade with oblique publicity to AI chatbot know-how, resembling semiconductors, community gear suppliers, cloud suppliers, central processing unit producers and web of issues.
A few of the publicly traded corporations in these verticals embrace:
Traders who don’t wish to put all their eggs in a single basket can try these 5 Synthetic Intelligence ETFs. And if you happen to’re on the lookout for a extra basic overview of the market, INN has you coated with How you can Put money into Synthetic Intelligence.
It’s also possible to have a look again on the market with our AI Market 2024 12 months-Finish Evaluation and AI Market Replace: Q2 2025 in Evaluation, or learn projections for AI this 12 months in our AI Market Forecast: 3 Prime Tendencies that can Have an effect on AI in 2025. Generative AI can be a significant theme within the Prime 10 Rising Applied sciences to Watch.
FAQs for investing in OpenAI and ChatGPT
How is OpenAI funded?
OpenAI raised US$57.9 billion over 11 funding rounds from 2016 to March 2025.
Prime buyers embrace know-how funding agency Thrive Capital, enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz and revolutionary know-how funding agency Founders Fund.
What’s the market worth of ChatGPT/OpenAI?
OpenAI has a market valuation of US$300 billion as of June 2025. The corporate’s annualized income reached the US$10 billion mark in June 2025, up from the US$5.5 billion achieved in December 2024.
Does ChatGPT use NVIDIA chips?
ChatGPT’s distributed computing infrastructure relies upon upon {powerful} servers with a number of graphics processing models (GPUs). Excessive-performance NVIDIA GPU chips are most well-liked for this software as additionally they present wonderful Compute Unified Gadget Structure help.
What’s DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a Chinese language AI firm that launched new AI-driven, open-source language fashions generally known as DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 into the market in January 2025. Reuters studies that “the coaching of DeepSeek-V3 required lower than $6 million price of computing energy from Nvidia H800 chips.”
DeepSeek-R1 is designed to compete with the efficiency of OpenAI-o1 throughout math, code, and reasoning duties.
Can ChatGPT make inventory predictions?
A College of Florida examine from 2023 highlighted the potential for superior language fashions resembling ChatGPT to precisely predict actions within the inventory market utilizing sentiment evaluation.
Through the course of the examine, ChatGPT outperformed conventional sentiment evaluation strategies, and the finance professors conducting the analysis concluded that “incorporating superior language fashions into the funding decision-making course of can yield extra correct predictions and improve the efficiency of quantitative buying and selling methods.”
When to count on ChatGPT 5?
OpenAI’s newest model of ChatGPT, GPT-5, was launched on August 7, 2025. The fundamental model is obtainable to all customers, whereas there are upgraded capabilities for Plus and Professional subscribers.
That is an up to date model of an article first printed by the Investing Information Community in 2023.
Remember to comply with us @INN_Technology for real-time information updates!
Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, maintain no direct funding curiosity in any firm talked about on this article.
