Sam Altman ' s personal wealth alchemy: investing in 400 companies, over 10 deep-seated with OpenAI

Original from:WSJ

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Other OrganiserThe dispute between OpenAI and Sam Altman has not stopped. Some see it as the leader of the AGI, as the heart of the soul that leads the technocrats to challenge and explore at the forefront of AI, as “the father of AI”; others say it is a tiny man, usually evidenced by the transformation of OpenAI from a non-profit organization to a commercial company, by bringing a gang together in the OpenAI board of directors, and by removing the alien. But in terms of personal wealth, Altman is not as prominent as the world's wealthiest Mask, but in his own way, OpenAI CEO's job, he has crafted a set of his own “liberty rings” called the “Most-day version of the AI Master of Wealth Refinery”。

During this period, Odaily Daily will reveal to the reader “the mystery of Sam Altman's personal alchemistry”, in conjunction with a recent survey in the Wall Street Journal. Here's the text with some deletions, Enjoy~

Altman's personal wealth network: a private equity wealth group built around OpenAI

Most of Sam Altman's personal wealth is scattered across a vast network of technology companies, including high-tech companies such as fusion, Helion, and even a start-up enterprise dedicated to building new cities along the Mediterranean coast。

It is clear that many of these companies have established various business partnerships with OpenAI, resulting in a complex network of investment interests. In the current context of OpenAI ' s preparations for the IPO listing and its close investigation and review by all parties, last month the United States House of Representatives Oversight Committee launched an investigation into Altman ' s potential conflict of interest, and several state Attorneys General called on the United States SEC to intervene。

It is worth noting that he does not own the shares of OpenAI directly (the latest estimate is $85.2 billion), which means that it is a rare phenomenon that his personal interests are not directly related to the company at his helm。Against this background, the Wall Street Journal combed dozens of its investments and analysed the impact of some of the transactions on their personal wealth。

Altman's “Investment List”: approximately 400 investment projects, with at least 10 cooperating or potential contacts with OpenAI

Three years ago (i.e. around 2023), at an external event, Altman himself stated that he was involved in investment and was still active in the market with about 400 start-ups. Based on public information and investigative reports, the Wall Street Journal screened over 80 investment projects, many of which dated back to the time when he had run the venture capital company Y Combinator。

MOST OF THESE INVESTMENTS ARE IN AREAS HIGHLY RELATED TO THE AI WAVE, INCLUDING SOFTWARE, BIOTECHNOLOGIES AND ENERGY。

And in the companies that they personally investAt least 10 have entered into commercial cooperation with OpenAI or have recently been negotiated。

After Altman's personal equity investment, OpenAI established research cooperation with at least two biotech companies。

According to the testimony presented in the trial of Mask v. OpenAI last monthAltman held shares in one of the companies, Retro Biosciences, which had been worth $258 million as of December。

In addition, Cerebras, Altman, a former high-profile chip maker, who had done so under the banner of "The Next Britain", had been investing almost 10 years ago. The key factor driving its listing was the recent chip purchase agreement with OpenAI。After Cerebras IPO, Altman held a corresponding share of more than six times the value of last December。

IN ACCORDANCE WITH ESTABLISHED PRACTICE, LISTED COMPANIES CEOS ARE USUALLY WARNED BY THE COMPANY'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS THAT “NO LARGE-SCALE HOLDING OF SHARES IN AN OUTSIDE ENTERPRISE”. THE REASON FOR THIS IS THAT IT CREATES A BUNDLE OF INTERESTS, PROMPTS THEM TO ENTER INTO TRANSACTIONS IN FAVOUR OF THEIR OWN EQUITY COMPANIES, OR PUTS THEM AT RISK OF BEING ACCUSED OF “SELF-DIRECTED”。

However, Bret Taylor, Chairman of the OpenAI Board, stated that Altman had always been highly transparent in disclosing his involvement in other business, and OpenAI had managed potential conflicts of interest carefully。

Altman's "energy layout" proudly: $4.1 billion from nuclear fusion start-up, Helion

Altman's biggest investment, nuclear fusion starter Helion。

It started investing in this company during Y Combinator's presidency. The company claimed to be close to commercial power generation but never disclosed its research results, making it difficult for its external statements to be verified by an independent third party。

On the other hand, Altman's one-powerful collaboration between OpenAI and Helion has also caused considerable controversy within the company。

The following is Altman's "interests" with Helion for more than 10 years:

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011Altman invested in Helion and chaired its board of directors. That same year, he co-founded OpenAI。

In 2021Altman made additional investments in Helion during the OpenAI period。That year, it was at a high cost of $375 million, creating its individual largest investment in the history of single start-ups。

In 2024OpenAI signed a non-binding agreement with Helion to purchase electricity resources from it in the future. In the trial between OpenAI and Mask, Shivon Zilis, a former board member of the OpenAI Board (Odaily Daily: the mother of four children), testified that the deal was “unsurprising”, because nuclear fusion was still a “specified technique” (Odaily Daily: it was written “in the brain of all of these conspirators”。

In 2025The Japanese investment agency has invested in soft money, OpenAI, and Altman then lobbied for soft money investment, Helion, which is at your disposal. A few months later, according to the Wall Street Journal, Altman urged OpenAI to invest about $500 million in Helioon, a move that has caused some OpenAI employees to wonder and worry. Eventually, the investment proposal was rejected at the OpenAI corporate level。

In 2026OpenAI signed a revised agreement with Helion in March of this year, when Altman resigned as President of the Helion Board on the grounds that he would cooperate with him in the future. OpenAI stated externally that “the board found the agreement to be in its `best interests'.” It did not indicate any inaccuracies。

In 2026JuneHelion announced a new round of financing with a valuation of $15.5 billion, with the investor being OpenAI strategic investor Thrive Capital. According to sources, the value of Ottman ' s shareholding in Helion has thus doubled at least $4.1 billion。

Finally, the development company behind World Coin, which had valued $2.5 billion and was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Altman, Tools for Humanity, has recently returned to the spotlight as a result of an internal investigation scandal。

According to Business Insider, in the context of the collapse of encrypted currency prices, global regulatory blockages, business contractions and layoffsWithin the company, two parallel investigations led by an external law firm were initiated, pointing to the misuse of funds by executives and suspected irregularities in Thai operations。

Before that, OpenAI had been criticized for a trillion-dollar contract with a cloud manufacturer and chip manufacturer, including a $500 billion partnership with the chip giant Nvidia, a $30 billion agreement with AMD, $30 billion with Oracle, and over $22 billion in transactions with the data centre group CoreWeave。

Based onForbes' FulfillsSam Altman is currently ranked 1251 on the global list of rich people, with net personal assets of about $3.4 billion. In addition, it invests in leading technology companies such as Stripe and Reddit. In April 2024, Altman ranked only 2692 on this list, and two years later, his personal net asset ranking rose by more than 1,400, and behind that list was the global wealth ranking of over 8 billion people。