OpenAI has condemned online brokerage firm Robinhood's sale of "OpenAI tokens," saying they will not give consumers stock in the company. "We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it," the company said in a post on X, adding that the tokens are not equity and that it did not give approval for any transfer.
The statement addresses a recent move by Robinhood to provide European investors access to what it calls a limited stock token on OpenAI and SpaceX. "These tokens give retail investors indirect exposure to private markets, opening up access, and are enabled by Robinhood’s ownership stake in a special purpose vehicle," Robinhood said in its own X missive.
So what is a special purpose vehicle (SPV)? Robinhood is suggesting that it owns private shares in OpenAI that it keeps in a separate company, the SPV, to isolate risk. So it's offering investors a chance to buy tokens (shares basically) in that private SPV and thus indirectly gain access to OpenAI's private shares that aren't available to retail investors.
"They aren’t technically 'equity'… [but]the tokens effectively give retail investors exposure to these private assets," Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev wrote in a post on X. "Our giveaway plants a seed for something much bigger and since our announcement we’ve been hearing from many private companies that are eager to join us in the tokenization revolution."
Such SPVs are fairly common as TechCruch points out, but OpenAI still isn't happy with Robinhood's tokens. If you're an eligible investor thinking of jumping in, keep in mind that SPVs can be overpriced compared to the underlying private stock. In addition OpenAI has an outrageous valuation compared to its earnings and has yet to show how it will achieve its sky-high $125 billion revenue forecast by 2029.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-disavows-online-broker-robinhoods-sale-of-openai-tokens-120033084.html?src=rss
