The chips invested by Altman have skyrocketed—this year’s largest tech IPO

Based on the midpoint of the IPO price, the value of these warrants is estimated at approximately $5 billion—roughly half of Cerebras’ gross profit from this deal. At the individual level, Altman and Greg Brockman had already invested in Cerebras personally early on. According to documents disclosed during the ongoing Musk v. OpenAI trial, as of the end of 2025, Altman held approximately 89,000 shares and Brockman held approximately 78,000 shares. At the offering price of $185 per share, Altman’s stake was worth about $16.5 million; after the first-day surge, it rose to roughly $27.8 million. Brockman’s corresponding values were approximately $14.4 million and $24.2 million. The ties between the two companies run even deeper. In 2017, OpenAI had considered merging with Cerebras—a deal originally planned to be jointly executed by OpenAI and Tesla—but Cerebras’ founding team rejected it. This historical detail emerged unexpectedly during the Musk v. OpenAI trial. The trial exposed Altman’s “investment empire”: over $2 billion On the very day Cerebras rang the bell for its IPO, a document surfaced in the Musk v. Altman trial. Musk’s lead attorney, Steven Molo, presented a list detailing Altman’s equity stakes in nine companies that have commercial ties with OpenAI. As of December 31, 2025, the total exceeded $2 billion. I (casually) looked up this list and found that although Altman holds no equity in OpenAI itself, his external investments are extraordinarily extensive. They effectively cover OpenAI’s entire “ecosystem”—spanning compute, energy, data, talent tools, and biopharma. The single largest holding is Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion startup, where Altman owns shares valued at $1.7 billion. The company currently generates zero revenue and carries a private-market valuation of $5.4 billion. Altman has known its founder for years, first investing in 2015 and, in late 2022, pushing OpenAI’s board to explore collaboration with Helion. In 2024, Helion signed an energy supply agreement with OpenAI. Altman himself stepped down from Helion’s board in March 2026—but remains its largest individual shareholder. Stripe, the fintech giant: Altman holds $633 million. Retro Biosciences, an anti-aging biotech firm: Altman holds $258 million. Reddit: Altman held over $600 million in shares around the time of the 2024 content partnership, but has since fully exited. Others on the list include Lattice (HR software), Humane (AI hardware), and Formation Bio (AI-driven drug discovery). OpenAI’s business expansion, in a sense, has served as a catalyst for Altman’s personal investment portfolio. A brief aside—California-related trivia.

Altman is lobbying globally for ‘AI infrastructure’—his ambition is so vast that TSMC executives called it ‘absurd,’ while Japanese officials responded with ‘dumbfounded laughter’

In private conversations, Altman likened global data centers to electricity. Just as the widespread adoption of electricity led people to discover ever-better ways to use it, Altman hopes to do the same with data centers—ultimately bringing AI technology into every household. This vision may sound overly ambitious, and many external voices have expressed skepticism: TSMC executives dismissed the idea of building 36 semiconductor fabrication plants as outright ‘absurd,’ while Japanese officials reportedly responded with ‘dumbfounded laughter’ upon learning that a single AI data center would require 5 gigawatts of power. Yet this also signals the tech industry’s determination to accelerate development—and ultimately achieve a transformation on par with the Industrial Revolution. Shortages of chips and data centers OpenAI’s ChatGPT—and many other AI systems—learn their capabilities by analyzing massive volumes of digital data and numbers. But the chips and data centers powering this process remain in short supply, and the electricity needed to run those data centers falls far short of demand. OpenAI believes that increasing supply would enable it to build more powerful AI systems. Across dozens of meetings, OpenAI executives have urged tech companies and investors alike to boost global computing capacity. Daniel Newman, CEO of tech research firm Futurum Group, stated: “Altman is thinking about how to keep OpenAI relevant—it needs more compute, more connectivity, and more energy.” So how can the chip and data center shortage be addressed? Altman’s original plan involved funding multiple chip manufacturing facilities through the UAE, then having NVIDIA use those semiconductors to produce more AI chips—finally enabling OpenAI and other firms to build AI data centers using those chips. Under Altman’s plan, each chip fab would cost up to $43 billion to construct. Yet this scheme would lower chip-manufacturing costs for companies like TSMC. But data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity—so what about power supply? Altman explored options including drawing electricity from Japanese nuclear plants and assessing the feasibility of offshore wind turbines. Overall, nuclear energy—as a renewable source—emerges as the most promising option. According to Altman’s plan, data centers would be built in the UAE, where surplus electricity is available, unlike the U.S., which faces power shortages. To advance this initiative, OpenAI has already discussed infrastructure financing with MGX—the UAE’s AI-dedicated investment vehicle—and met with TSMC, NVIDIA, and Samsung. Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, told The New York Times in March that pursuing such a massive deal ‘makes commercial sense.’ An ‘absurd’ plan? Altman began fundraising for this project last year, visiting TSMC’s headquarters. He told TSMC executives that realizing his vision—building 36 semiconductor fabs plus additional data centers—would require $7 trillion and many years. TSMC executives found the idea highly implausible: merely adding a few new chip fabs entails enormous risk—let alone 36.

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