Altman became the face of artificial intelligence through his role as CEO of OpenAI
OpenAI Founder and CEO Sam Altman witnessed his net worth touch the $2 billion mark, as per the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. However, despite his sitting at the helm of the AI research firm, the company's financial success has no contribution to the aforementioned figure.
This is the first time the index has evaluated the fortune of the 38-year-old, who became the face of artificial intelligence through his role as CEO of OpenAI—which was recently valued at $86 billion.
As per a Bloomberg report, Altman has repeatedly claimed that he does not own equity in the company. In fact, the report added that much of his traceable wealth is in a network of VC funds and start-up investments.
Additionally, his wealth is set to grow with the initial public offering of Reddit, where he's among the largest shareholders.
Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing him of breaching contractual agreements that were made when Mr Musk helped found the ChatGPT-maker in 2015.
A lawsuit filed on Thursday in San Francisco stated that Altman along with OpenAI's co-founder Greg Brockman originally approached Musk to make an open source.
The lawsuit added that open-source assured that it would develop artificial intelligence technology for the "benefit of humanity".
In the lawsuit, the Tesla CEO alleged that the Microsoft-backed company's focus on seeking profits breaks that agreement.
It must be noted that back in 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI. However, the billionaire stepped down from the company's board in 2018. Later, in October 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion.
The chatbot from OpenAI, ChatGPT, became the fastest-growing software application in the world within just six months of its launch in November 2022.
Not only this, ChatGPT also sparked the launch of its rival chatbots from companies like Microsoft, Alphabet and a group of start-ups that tapped the hype to secure billions in funding.
Ever since ChatGPT debuted, several companies have adopted it for a wide range of tasks. This includes summarising documents, writing computer code, setting off a race among Big Tech companies and launching their own offerings based on generative AI.