Openai wants to make it clear that the sale of Robinhood’s “Openai Tokens” does not give Openai daily consumer fairness or stock. The company said in a post from X’s official newsroom account.
“These ‘Openai tokens’ are not fair for Openai,” Openai’s newsroom account said Wednesday. “We did not partner with Robinhood, did not engage in this, and did not support it. The transfer of OpenaiEquity requires approval. We did not approve the transfer. Please be aware.”
Openai’s statement is the response to Robinhood’s announcement earlier this week, and it is said that it will begin selling so-called tokenized stocks from Openai, SpaceX and other private companies to people in the European Union.
Robinhood said the launch represents an attempt to expose everyday people to the world’s most valuable private companies via blockchain, as well as to be fair. Hours after announcing the sale of these tokens, Robinhood’s stock shot to an all-time high.
However, stocks from private companies such as Openai and SpaceX are not generally available. That’s why they keep them private. They sell stocks to their chosen investors.
Therefore, Openai openly denies Robinhood’s efforts.
In response to Openai’s accusations, Robinhood spokesman Rouky Diallo told TechCrunch that Openai Tokens is a part of a “limited” giveaway and a “limited” giveaway to provide indirect exposure to retail investors through “through ownership of Robinhood’s special purpose vehicle (SPV)”.
This suggests that Robinhood owns SPV stocks that manage a certain number of Openai stocks. Like tokens, shares in SPVs are not directly owned by the shares. They are ownership of the vehicle that owns the shares. In some way, Robinhood appears to be linking the price of the new tokenized product to Openai stock in its SPV. However, the stock price of the SPV is different from the actual stock price.
Robinhood’s Help Center says when purchasing any of the stock tokens, “we are not purchasing actual stocks – we are purchasing tokenization contracts following the price recorded on the blockchain.”
“It’s true that they’re not technically “fair.” […] Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a post on X on Wednesday:
Openai declined to comment further. Robinhood did not respond to TechCrunch’s additional questions about SPV.
Private companies are known to oppose anything that could affect how their fairness is assessed. In recent months, Humanoid Robotics startup figure AI has sent a halt and assumed letter to two brokers operating the secondary market, which sells the company’s stock. Of course, these situations are different, but most startups don’t want people to believe that they don’t approve of selling stocks.
