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cover of episode TNB Tech Minute: OpenAI’s $40 Billion Funding Round Has a Catch

TNB Tech Minute: OpenAI’s $40 Billion Funding Round Has a Catch

2025/3/28
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WSJ Tech News Briefing

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Victoria Craig: 我独家报道称,ChatGPT的母公司OpenAI正在敲定一轮400亿美元的融资,这将是有史以来规模最大的初创企业融资之一。但这里有一个陷阱:这家非营利性公司必须成功地改组为营利性公司。如果它未能做到这一点,主要投资者软银可以将融资规模减少一半。 Sam Altman在2023年末短暂被免去首席执行官职务后,这种转变的压力越来越大。当时,OpenAI的董事会表示,Altman在其沟通中并非始终诚实。这导致投资者认为,正是这种非营利性结构带来了过多的风险。新闻集团(《华尔街日报》的所有者)与OpenAI之间存在内容许可合作伙伴关系。 此外,本应是今年最引人注目的股票市场首秀却变成了高调的绊脚石。CoreWeave公司今天在纳斯达克证券交易所上市,该公司出租其NVIDIA服务器资源。它在更广泛的市场开盘约四小时后开始交易,略低于其40美元的IPO价格。 尽管在接下来的交易时段中它超过了这一门槛,但它的交易价格远低于该公司在投资者路演中目标的47美元至55美元区间。CoreWeave的疲软开局表明,市场对人工智能初创企业的需求正在降温。 而且,这说明了今年希望进入公开市场的公司面临的困难。《华尔街日报》的Cori Dreebush解释了投资者担忧的原因。存在公司自身的问题,投资者表示,我们真的不想支付那么多钱。 他们还担心人工智能热潮的可持续性。显然,公司目前正在人工智能上投入数千亿美元,但这能持续多久呢?CoreWeave的股票在周五的交易中几乎没有变化。 最后,特朗普总统今天动用了他的赦免权,这次是赦免了现已破产的电动卡车制造商Nikola的创始人特雷弗·米尔顿。米尔顿于2022年被判犯有证券欺诈和电信欺诈罪。检察官将他描绘成一个骗子,他通过对Nikola的销售和车辆的实际性能能力撒谎来蒙蔽投资者。 米尔顿坚称自己是无辜的,并对他的定罪提出上诉。他被判处四年监禁,但在上诉期间一直保释在外。

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KPMG makes the difference by creating value, like developing strategic insights that help drive M&A success and embedding AI solutions into your business to sustain competitive advantage, or deploying tech-enabled audits to deliver more accurate and transparent outcomes. KPMG drives brighter insights, bolder solutions, better outcomes.

It's how our people make the difference every day. KPMG, make the difference. Learn more at www.kpmg.us slash insights. Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Friday, March 28th. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal.

We're exclusively reporting that ChatGPT's parent company, OpenAI, is finalizing a $40 billion funding round that would be one of the biggest startup fundraisers of all time. But there's a catch. The nonprofit company must successfully restructure itself into a for-profit one. If it fails to do so, lead investor SoftBank can shrink the funding round's size by half.

Pressure has mounted for such a transition after Sam Altman was removed briefly as CEO in late 2023. At the time, OpenAI's board said Altman wasn't consistently honest in his communications. That led investors to argue that it was the nonprofit structure that carried too many risks. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.

Elsewhere, what was supposed to be the flashiest stock market debut of the year turned into a high-profile stumble. CoreWeave, which rents access to its stash of NVIDIA servers, made its debut on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange today. It began trading about four hours after the broader market opened and just under its IPO price of $40.

Though it passed that threshold during the remainder of the session, it traded well below the $47 to $55 range the company targeted during its roadshow for investors. The lackluster start for CoreWeave is a sign of cooling market demand for AI-focused startups.

And it illustrates the difficulty for companies hoping to make their way to the public markets this year. WSJ's Cori Dreebush explains the worry for investors. There are company-specific issues, and investors said no, we don't really want to pay that much. And

They also had concerns about the sustainability of the AI boom. And obviously companies right now are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI, but how sustainable is that? Corweave shares ended Friday's trading session little changed.

Finally, President Trump took the cap off his pardon pen today, this time for Trevor Milton, the founder of the now-bankrupt electric truck maker Nikola. Milton was convicted of securities and wire fraud in 2022. Prosecutors portrayed him as a conman who pulled the wool over investors' eyes by being untruthful about Nikola's sales and the real performance ability of its vehicles.

Milton maintained his innocence and appealed his conviction. He was sentenced to four years in prison but has been out on bond during the appeal. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Monday's Tech News Briefing podcast.

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