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The company behind ChatGPT, GPT-4, DALL-E, and other AI systems. Founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others. Known for massive data scraping without consent, displacing creative workers, and aggressive commercialization of stolen content.

Website

https://openai.com

CEO

Sam Altman

Founded

2015

Valuation

$80B+

> Founders

Sam AltmanElon MuskGreg BrockmanIlya Sutskever

> Products & Services

ChatGPTGPT-4DALL-ESoraWhisperCodex

> Funding

Total: $11.3B

Latest Round: $10B from Microsoft

Investors:

  • Microsoft
  • Khosla Ventures
  • Reid Hoffman

> Layoffs

50 employees

Content moderation team replaced by AI

Source

> Controversies

Massive data scraping without consent from websites, books, and creative works.[1][2][3]

Controversy 1 Sources:

  1. Authors Sue OpenAI, Allege ChatGPT Was Trained on Their Books(July 2023)
  2. Canadian News Publishers Sue OpenAI Over Alleged Copyright Infringement(November 2024)
  3. Publisher: OpenAI's GPT Store Bots are Illegally Scraping Our Textbooks(April 2024)

Trained on stolen content from millions of creators.[4][5][6]

Controversy 2 Sources:

  1. Authors Sue OpenAI, Allege ChatGPT Was Trained on Their Books(July 2023)
  2. Canadian News Publishers Sue OpenAI Over Alleged Copyright Infringement(November 2024)
  3. Publisher: OpenAI's GPT Store Bots are Illegally Scraping Our Textbooks(April 2024)

Laid off content moderators while expanding AI capabilities.[7][8][9][10]

Controversy 3 Sources:

  1. 150 African Workers for ChatGPT, TikTok and Facebook Vote to Unionize(May 2023)
  2. Psychological Trauma, Low Pay and Abrupt Layoffs: Kenyan Content Moderators Criticize Training of AI Models(2023)
  3. AI Workers Safety Rules(July 2023)
  4. OpenAI Layoffs Hit Research SRE Team Including Todd Underwood(September 2024)

Accused of creating tools that directly replace human writers, artists, and developers.[11][12][13][14]

Controversy 4 Sources:

  1. ChatGPT's Impact on the Labor Market(2024)
  2. Is AI a real or imagined threat to artists?(March 2025)
  3. AI's Impact on Software Development(2024)
  4. OpenAI's Impact on Labor Market(2024)

> Data Centers

> Microsoft Fairwater Atlanta

Microsoft AI WAN #confident

speculative

Location

1435 Hwy 54 W, Fayetteville, GA 30214

33°26'55"N, 84°31'20"W

H100 Equiv

531.2K

Power

615 MW

Cost

$16.84B

Energy

Georgia Power

Data Center Sources Sources:

  1. Epoch AI, 'Frontier Data Centers'. Published online at epoch.ai. Retrieved from 'https://epoch.ai/data/data-centers' [online resource]. Accessed 5 Jan 2026.(2026-01-05)

> Microsoft Fairwater Wisconsin

Microsoft AI WAN #confident

likely

Location

4800 90th St, Mount Pleasant, WI 53403

42°40'28"N, 87°53'42"W

Energy

WE Energies

Data Center Sources Sources:

  1. Epoch AI, 'Frontier Data Centers'. Published online at epoch.ai. Retrieved from 'https://epoch.ai/data/data-centers' [online resource]. Accessed 5 Jan 2026.(2026-01-05)

> OpenAI Stargate Abilene

Stargate #confident

confident

Location

5502 Spinks Rd, Abilene, TX 79601

32°29'59"N, 99°47'02"W

H100 Equiv

254.7K

Power

295 MW

Cost

$8.00B

Owner

Oracle

Investors

SoftbankOpenAIOracle

Construction

CrusoeMortenson

Energy

American Electric Power

Data Center Sources Sources:

  1. Epoch AI, 'Frontier Data Centers'. Published online at epoch.ai. Retrieved from 'https://epoch.ai/data/data-centers' [online resource]. Accessed 5 Jan 2026.(2026-01-05)

> OpenAI Stargate UAE

Stargate #confident

confident

Location

Nexus L&T Project Office, Al Bihouth, Al Dhafrah, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

24°9'15"N, 54°26'39"E

Owner

G42

Investors

SoftbankOracleNVIDIACiscoG42

Construction

Khazna

Data Center Sources Sources:

  1. Epoch AI, 'Frontier Data Centers'. Published online at epoch.ai. Retrieved from 'https://epoch.ai/data/data-centers' [online resource]. Accessed 5 Jan 2026.(2026-01-05)

> Tags

llmimage generationcode generationchatbotdata scrapingcontroversybillionaire ownedmajor player