Why Elon Musk’s $100 million donation claim to ChatGPT maker OpenAI may be wrong

Elon Musk, in mid-March, tweeted that he donated around $100 million to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and that once a non-profit, the company became “a $30B market cap for-profit” firm. His tweet was an attack on the then startup in which Microsoft infused billions for using the generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in the chatbot. A new report has now claimed that Musk never donated $100 million to OpenAI and only $15 million can be traced.

Citing documents filed with the IRS and a state regulator, a report by TechCrunch said that Musk could not have given the non-profit the $100 million he originally claimed.

“In fact, while the source of much of OpenAI’s funding remains unclear, filings contain only around $15 million of donations that can be traced definitively back to Musk,” the report claimed.