Sam Altman’s Reddit stake now worth more than $1 billion after huge earnings jump | Wilnesh News

OpenAI’s controversial CEO Sam Altman takes stake in social media company Reddit As of Tuesday’s after-hours trading, it was worth more than $1 billion.

Altman controls about 12.2 million shares of Reddit, the company he first invested in more than a decade ago. Reddit shares surged about 20% in after-hours trading after the company reported better-than-expected quarterly results and issued an upbeat forecast.

Based on Reddit’s after-hours stock price of $98, Altman’s stake is worth approximately $1.2 billion.

Before OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released to the public in late 2022 and became wildly popular, Altman was best known as a startup investor and former president of Y Combinator. Altman’s portfolio includes past or current holdings in Airbnb, Uber, Instacart, Stripe and Asana, but one of his most prized investments is Reddit. Altman served on the social media platform’s board of directors until around January 2022, when the company explain He recently resigned.

Reddit went public in March at $34 a share.

Altman is one of the company’s largest shareholders, behind Condé Nast parent Advance Magazine Publishers, Chinese internet giants Tencent and Fidelity. In 2021, as the tech market boomed, Altman invested a total of $60 million in Reddit over two rounds of funding, according to the company’s IPO prospectus earlier this year.

Top shareholders were prohibited from selling Reddit stock for six months during the “lockup period,” which expired in September. There is no indication Altman has sold any of his shares.

Altman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, OpenAI completed its latest funding round at a $157 billion valuation, including $6.6 billion the company raised from numerous investment firms and technology companies. CNBC confirmed in September that the company expected revenue of $3.7 billion this year and a loss of about $5 billion.

Altman told employees last month that he had no plans to take a “significant stake” in the company.

In March, OpenAI said Altman would rejoin the company’s board following an internal investigation by U.S. law firm WilmerHale into the events that led to Altman’s sudden ouster (and swift reinstatement) late last year.

—CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report

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