Sam Altman enters 'Forbes World's Billionaires List 2024', fails to beat Elon Musk
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday finally joined the billionaires club alongside billionaires from around the world, according to Forbes, but still has a long way to go in comparison to tech rival and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who stands second on the list.
Altman co-founded the company behind ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence (AGI), in 2022 and has now made his way into the list of world billionaires standing at the 2,692nd position.
According to Forbes, the 38-year-old tech mogul accumulated his wealth solely by investing in startups, including Reddit, which made its way to the New York Stock Exchange, and payments company Stripe, which is worth $65 billion.
Meanwhile, Musk, who is also the founder of Neuralink and the Boring company, is worth $194 billion, according to Forbes.
Altman, whose OpenAI is backed by tech giant Microsoft, also poured money into other ventures, such as nuclear energy company Helion and longevity startup Retro Biosciences. His fortune included prime real estate in California and Hawaii, was estimated by public filings and investigative reporting, according to Forbes.
After the widespread fame of ChatGPT, the chatbot posed a threat to other tech giants such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft, intimidating their respective product dominance.
Citing intense competition, Musk also founded his own start-up xAI and incorporated it with the name Grok.
According to Altman, he does not own stakes in $80 billion worth of Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
Meanwhile, For the first time since July 2021, Amazon stock prices hit all time high making billionaire Jeff Bezos $3.3 billion richer, Forbes reported.
On Thursday, the e-commerce company’s share price increased by 2% to $190 per share. It is now less than 2% away from crossing the $2 trillion market capitalisation mark.
Transformation in artificial intelligence (AI) has resulted in investors shifting in favour of Amazon. Analysts believe Amazon’s AI-heavy AWS division will drive much of the online retail giant's growth.
After Bezos retirement as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy took over. During the beginning of his tenure between mid-2021 and the end of 2022, prices of Amazon stock reduced by as much as 60%.
Bezos, 60, is the executive chairman of Amazon’s board and its largest shareholder. Due to the rise in stock prices, his wealth has risen by $3.3 billion, reaching $210 billion.
He is the second richest man in the world Bernard Arnault — the CEO of LVMH.