TECHSTARTUPS
Back in March, we wrote OpenAI after the creator of ChatGPT bought AI.com for a whopping $11 million, making it one of the most expensive domain purchases in history. The redirect of AI.com to OpenAI’s ChatGPT page only fueled the speculation that they were indeed the buyers. But hold on to your hats, it appears AI.com has a new owner.
Just four months after the acquisition of AI.com, it seems AI.com has changed hands once again. According to AnalyticsIndiaMag.com, the domain has been bought by none other than the tech mogul himself, Elon Musk.
While there’s no official confirmation from either Musk or OpenAI at this point, the evidence is hard to ignore. Typing “ai.com” into the browser URL now takes users to Musk’s new AI venture, known as xAI.
Interestingly, before its OpenAI stint, AI.com was owned by Future Media Architects. When Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, acquired it in February, the goal seemed to be making AI synonymous with ChatGPT, putting OpenAI at the forefront of the AI race against giants like Google.
Now, with Elon Musk, another co-founder of OpenAI, taking the reins, it appears that his vision is to make his company the epicenter of the AI landscape. The acquisition of the AI.com domain further strengthens Musk’s commitment to the world of artificial intelligence.
As the saga unfolds, we can’t help but wonder what groundbreaking advancements lie ahead for xAI and what it means for the future of AI. One thing’s for sure – the race to AI dominance just got even more thrilling!
As we reported earlier, OpenAI was co-founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman along with 20 others with the mission of developing and promoting friendly artificial intelligence, with the goal of advancing and ensuring the beneficial use of AI in society.
What’s also unknown to many is that Elon Musk also paid $11 million to acquire Tesla.com. In Third Row Tesla Podcast, Musk told the story of how it took about a decade to finally get Silicon Valley engineer Stuart Grossman to sell the rights to Tesla.com. Musk said:
“That took us 10 years to buy that Tesla.com domain. That cost us like, $10 million.”
Meanwhile, AI.com and Tesla.com are just two of the most expensive domain names ever sold. In 2019, we also reported the sale of Voice.com after Peter Thiel-backed crypto startup Block.one bought Voice.com for $30 million for its new blockchain-based social media platform Voice.
Voice.com was sold for $30 million in cash by Microstrategy, a company founded by Michael Saylor.
